Transportation challenges facing landlocked countries focus of OSCE meeting

VIENNA, 12 December 2006 - Finding ways to help landlocked developing countries overcome transport challenges so that they can prosper is the focus of a two-day OSCE meeting that began today in Vienna.

The meeting follows a decision reached at the OSCE Ministerial Council, held earlier this month in Brussels, saying the Organization should continue to promote dialogue in the field of transport, paying particular attention to landlocked countries.

"Landlocked developing countries face unique challenges related to their lack of access to the open sea, their dependence on transit services and difficulties related to market access," said Ambassador Bertrand de Crombrugghe, representing the 2006 Belgian OSCE Chairmanship at the meeting's opening.

"Addressing the needs of those countries requires a long-term co-operative process."

More than 30 experts are participating in the meeting, which is the first in a series of preparatory events ahead of an OSCE conference on transit to be held in 2007 in Tajikistan. That conference is expected to contribute to a review of progress under the Almaty Programme of Action, which was adopted by the international community in 2003. The programme aims to create partnerships to resolve the transport problems facing landlocked developing countries.

Bernard Snoy, the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities, told participants at the meeting that the Organization could serve as a forum for co-operation in the field of transportation.

"The OSCE is not a technical organization," he said. "However, the role we are very capable of playing is that of a facilitator, a political catalyst offering a platform for dialogue and co-operation among international actors as well as among our participating States."

The Office of the Co-ordinator of OSCE Economic and Environmental Activities organized the meeting together with the UN Office of the High Representative for the Least Developed Countries, Landlocked Developing Countries and Small Island Developing States.

Nine of the OSCE's 56 participating States - Armenia, Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Moldova, Tajikistan, the former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan - are classified as landlocked developing countries, according to the UN Office of the High Representative.