Sahara, Sahel observatory meets in Morocco

The Sahara and Sahel Observatory will hold an extraordinary general assembly this March 6-7 in Rabat with ministers, officials, African sub-regional and international organizations member to the Observatory, attending.

The assembly is held three years after the meeting convened in Niamey in February 97. It had mainly recommended to promote the international status of the observatory, set up in 1999 in Paris to support African countries affected by desertification and drought.

In addition to issues related environment and lasting development, participants will consolidate the organization's capacities to make of it a political and scientific tool at the service of north-south and south-south partnership and cooperation, says a statement of the Moroccan agriculture ministry.

Organizations, which will participate in the general assembly are the intergovernmental committee against drought in the sahel, the intergovernmental authority on development and the Arab Maghreb Union (UMA).