Prof. Dr. Abdallah Zaghlol, President of Desert Research Centre met with members of Science and Technology Committee (a high-level committee) to discuss implementing the plan of Desert Research Center’s strategy, to combat desertification 2022-2030.
President of Desert Research Center said that desertification is one of the most important problems that facing humans and threatens all aspects of life, whether at local or global level. Desertification is not a modern environmental phenomenon, but it became the focus of the whole world’s attention, in the last third of last century, when drought struck El-Sahel region, in West Africa, and continued in some areas of this region till now.
This drought resulted death of between fifty thousand to two hundred and fifty thousand people. And death of more than three million heads of cattle, sheep, goats and camels, which prompted The United Nations to combat the Desertification Conference in 1977, in Nairobi, to agree on an action plan to combat desertification.
Zaghlol pointed out that Desert Research Center is the oldest research institute in the field of combating desertification in Egypt, which has been carrying out many research and applied efforts to combat desertification, since its establishment, as (Fouad I) Desert Institute, before the 1952 revolution, then it became with the signing of the International Convention to Combat Desertification, the reference responsible for following up implementation of the Convention to Combat Desertification in Egypt till now.
he mentioned that with comprehensive development efforts that Egypt is live in all fields under leadership of President Abdel Fattah El-Sisi, Mr. El-Qusair, Minister of Agriculture and Land Reclamation, assigned Desert Research Center to develop a strategic plan to combat desertification, as a roadmap to guide all efforts of the Center, and to be more related to combating desertification and land degradation and drought, in order to maximize the role of the center in this field, and to develop the role it plays in participating in the implementation of national projects and updated agriculture strategy 2030.
