Baku, Azerbaijan, Nov. 1
By Nigar Guliyev – Trend:
The 22nd session of the UN Special Programme for the Economies of Central Asia (SPECA) Project Working Group on Transport and Border Crossing kicked off in Astana Nov.1.
More than 40 delegates from government agencies and diplomatic missions of UN SPECA countries - Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, as well as international, regional and financial organizations - the United Nations Economic Commission for Europe, the Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP ), the United Nations Development Program (UNDP), the Turkic Council, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and the Islamic Development Bank attend the event.
Dauren Sabitov, the deputy chairman of the Transport Committee of the Ministry of Investment and Development of Kazakhstan, addressing the event, noted that the UN SPECA was established in 1997 by the UN European and Asian-Pacific regional commissions at the initiative of President of Kazakhstan Nursultan Nazarbayev.
"Since then, one of the important areas of cooperation discussed at the UN SPECA platform is promotion of international transit transport and the harmonization of national transport and customs legislation with international standards," he said.
During the two day event, the participants will discuss the current issues of the transport sector at the UNECE seminar on the Sustainable Development Goals related to transport.
The seminar participants will discuss ways to achieve the SDG through the formation and implementation of long-term transport policies at national levels. In this context, focus will made on the conceptual development of transport until 2030 and the role of international financial institutions in this process, creation of a sustainable transport infrastructure and access to a secure urban transport system, and collection and processing of data on road safety and road transport in SPECA countries, Russia and Belarus.
The above-mentioned events are held within the framework of the 10th International Conference on Transport and Transit Potential "TransEurasia-2017" on the topic "New Eurasia: development of transport and logistics systems on Euro-Asian transcontinental routes".