United Nations A/RES/58/211 General Assembly Distr.: General 9 February 2004 Fifty-eighth session Agenda item 94 (b) Resolution adopted by the General Assembly on 23 December 2003 [on the report of the Second Committee (A/58/484/Add.2)] 58/211. International Year of Deserts and Desertification, 2006 The General Assembly, Recalling chapter 12 of Agenda 21 adopted by the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, 1 Recalling also the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in Those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, Particularly in Africa, 2 Recalling further the Plan of Implementation of the World Summit on Sustainable Development (“Johannesburg Plan of Implementation”) 3 and the Johannesburg Declaration on Sustainable Development, 4 Having considered decision 22/15 of 7 February 2003 of the Governing Council of the United Nations Environment Programme on an international year of deserts and desertification, 5 Deeply concerned by the exacerbation of desertification, particularly in Africa, and its far-reaching implications for the implementation of the Millennium Development Goals, in particular on poverty eradication, Recalling the environment initiative of the New Partnership for Africa’s Development, 6 Conscious of the need to raise public awareness and to protect the biological diversity of deserts as well as indigenous and local communities and the traditional knowledge of those affected by this phenomenon, _______________ 1 Report of the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development, Rio de Janeiro, 3-14 June 1992 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.93.I.8 and corrigenda), vol. I: Resolutions adopted by the Conference, resolution 1, annex II. 2 United Nations, Treaty Series, vol. 1954, No. 33480. 3 Report of the World Summit on Sustainable Development, Johannesburg, South Africa, 26 August-4 September 2002 (United Nations publication, Sales No. E.03.II.A.1 and corrigendum), chap. 1, resolution 2, annex. 4 Ibid., resolution 1, annex. 5 See Official Records of the General Assembly, Fifty-eighth Session, Supplement No. 25 (A/58/25), annex. 6 A/57/304, annex, paras. 138-142. 03 50718