The United Nations Environment Assembly,
Recalling General Assembly resolution 70/195 on combating sand and dust storms, which recognizes that dust and sand storms, and the unsustainable land management practices, among other factors, that can cause or exacerbate these phenomena, pose a great challenge to the sustainable development of affected countries and regions, and which also recognizes that in the past few years dust and sand storms have inflicted substantial socioeconomic damage on the inhabitants of the world’s arid, semi-arid and dry subhumid areas, especially in Africa and Asia.