The United Nations Development Program (UNDP) will upgrade
cooperation and assistance to China, top officials from the agency
said.
The UNDP, the largest UN organization, will expand its support to
China in coming years, focusing on poverty eradication,
environmental protection, training and HIV/AIDS control.
The agency will also help China prepare for the entry into the
World Trade Organization (WTO), and carry out occupational training
and re-training programmes for Chinese workers who lose their jobs.
The announcement came from Hafiz Pasha, UNDP assistant
administrator and regional director for Asia and the Pacific.
The regional director was in Beijing last week for a UNDP
Asia-Pacific regional meeting, which discussed future directions
for UNDP work in the region.
UNDP officials from its headquarters in New York and
representatives from the Asia-Pacific region attended the meeting,
as did the UNDP's Administrator Mark Malloch Brown.
During their stay in Beijing, the administrator and the newly
appointed Pasha held talks with senior Chinese leaders to discuss
future cooperation.
According to Brown, the major challenges facing countries in the
region, including China, are good governance, globalization,
environmental protection, information technology, coping with
natural disasters and HIV/AIDS control.
Every country in the region, whatever their political system, is
struggling to improve basic services, such as education and health
care, said Brown.
When talking about how globalization will affect China, he stressed
joining the WTO will be a big challenge.
The UNDP will help China sustain its incredible growth momentum to
continue its success, said Pasha.
The UNDP started cooperation with China in 1979, and was the first
UN organization to set up in the country.
Since then, it has brought into China more than US$800 million
through various forms of co-operation.
UNDP China has been supporting the Chinese authorities in their
pursuit of poverty eradication, the advancement of women,
environmental protection, energy development, and good governance,
said UNDP officials.
In
one recent development, the UNDP launched a project using
information and communication technology to reduce poverty in rural
China.
The UNDP attaches great importance to environmental protection, and
about half of its collaborative programmes with China are focused
in this area.
Early this year, it launched a project to help China's township and
village enterprises save energy and control greenhouse gas
emissions.
This US$8 million project, funded by the Global Environment
Facility, covers four types of industries, cement and brick making,
metal casting and coking.
The total energy consumption by these industries alone amounts to
over 50 percent of the total consumption by township and village
factories. Their greenhouse gas emissions amounted to over 104
million tons in 1995.
The project, in complement with a series of initiatives by the
Chinese government, aims to intervene to remove policy, technology,
market and finance barriers to controlling emissions.
It
is anticipated that by the completion of the projects, improved
production techniques will have led to energy savings in the four
sectors of between 20 and 60 percent.
The project will also lead to a significant and sustained increase
in commercial funding for energy efficiency initiatives run by
township and village enterprises.
(China Daily 04/24/2001)