A recurring impression garnered from even casual internet browsing is that the bureaucratic gravy train is near enough global. North Korea doesn't seem to be involved, but it's an outlier.
Here for example, we have Kazakhstan, Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Kyrgyzstan, and Tajikistan booking their seats at the global gravy train table.
Opinion: The Regional Ecological Summit and the Making of a Central Asian Voice
On 22–24 April, Astana hosted the Regional Ecological Summit—a gathering of governments, international organizations, financial institutions, and civil society that marked a new level of ambition in Central Asia’s environmental diplomacy. Fifty-eight sessions were held across three days at a moment when Central Asia’s ecological agenda is becoming inseparable from its political and economic future.
The opening ceremony was attended by the presidents of all five Central Asian states. The summit adopted the Astana Declaration on Ecological Solidarity in Central Asia and brought renewed attention to the need to reform the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFAS). Taken together, these developments signal more than procedural diplomacy. They point to growing political momentum.
The region has never lacked shared history or channels of communication. Russian remains a practical language of intergovernmental exchange, and borders, economies, rivers, energy systems, and labor markets have tied these countries together long before contemporary climate diplomacy gave this interdependence a new vocabulary.
Opinion: The Regional Ecological Summit and the Making of a Central Asian Voice
On 22–24 April, Astana hosted the Regional Ecological Summit—a gathering of governments, international organizations, financial institutions, and civil society that marked a new level of ambition in Central Asia’s environmental diplomacy. Fifty-eight sessions were held across three days at a moment when Central Asia’s ecological agenda is becoming inseparable from its political and economic future.
The opening ceremony was attended by the presidents of all five Central Asian states. The summit adopted the Astana Declaration on Ecological Solidarity in Central Asia and brought renewed attention to the need to reform the International Fund for Saving the Aral Sea (IFAS). Taken together, these developments signal more than procedural diplomacy. They point to growing political momentum.
The region has never lacked shared history or channels of communication. Russian remains a practical language of intergovernmental exchange, and borders, economies, rivers, energy systems, and labor markets have tied these countries together long before contemporary climate diplomacy gave this interdependence a new vocabulary.
Yes - contemporary climate diplomacy does give interdependence a new vocabulary, that's the idea.
4 comments:
A gravy train for sure. But I do think rescuing the Aral Sea is a praiseworthy objective; its destruction was one of the greatest ecological disasters, even by Soviet standards.
Peter - yes, some of it is worthwhile. Bureaucrats will milk it and use it to promote their roles, but it's still worthwhile.
Which was more important to the peoples of the Aral region ... cotton or fish? Public health or public illness due to desertification?
James - fish I imagine, and water.
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