Day: December 7, 2022

ISLAMABAD: The United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) has adopted a resolution, submitted by Pakistan on behalf of the Group of 77 and China, to bolster the UN’s hard-pressed humanitarian system struggling to help people hit by increasing natural disasters and other crises around the world.

Deputy Permanent Representative of Pakistan to the UN, Ambassador Aamir Khan introduced the draft. Speaking on the occasion, he stressed the importance of assisting countries and people affected by natural disasters.

According to a Radio Pakistan’s report, the 193-member Assembly recognized the relationship between emergency response, rehabilitation, and development, as well as the need to ensure a smooth transition between the three stages. Pakistan is the current chairman of G77 and China, which now has 134 members and is the United Nations’ biggest intergovernmental group of emerging countries.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s Ambassador to the United States Masood Khan has said potential areas of cooperation between the agriculture universities of Pakistan and the United States and interventions needed to optimize agricultural yields through introduction of weather resistant and climate resilient seeds.

Talking to the Head of Department of Geographical Sciences, University of Maryland Professor Matthew Hansen in Washington, he said recent momentum in Pak-US relations has provided an opportunity to further strengthen Pak-US cooperation in agriculture sector. He underlined the need for more research on GMO as well as food and cash crops. He requested Professor Hansen to help develop university to university partnerships to carry out a research on advanced crop monitoring in Pakistan.

Professor Hansen said that through a project titled “Global Agricultural Monitoring (GLAM) Project” funded by the United States Department of Agriculture, the University of Maryland has provided technical assistance to build capacity of Pakistani statisticians in application of remote sensing in crop area estimation. Under the project, the University of Maryland launched research to estimate wheat yield, and subsequently build the capacity of relevant Pakistani institutions.

Professor Hansen said that he was already engaged with Dr Iqrar Ahmed, Vice Chancellor of University of Agriculture Faisalabad and welcomed the collaboration between the two universities. He plans to discuss this in detail during his visit to Pakistan in January 2023. Ambassador Masood Khan thanked Professor Hansen for his support and valuable partnership, and assured him of the Government f Pakistan’s continued support in building linkages between Pakistan’s universities with the University of Maryland.