6 Ensure environmental sustainability
Where we are?
The government of Georgia adopted the strategy and action plan on biodiversity preservation with Resolution #27 of February 19, 2004. The strategy covers the preservation of biodiversity for the period of 10 years, while the action plan is designed for a five-year term.
Despite its rich water deposits, Georgia is still experiencing difficulties in supplying the population with safe drinking water in rural areas. The underground water deposits remain the main source of drinking water, providing 90% of the water supply system. Currently 84% of urban and 15.7% of the rural population is centrally supplied with drinking water.
In recent years Georgia has experienced increasingly frequent effects of climate change. The third national communication to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change will be issued in 2013 and will include the updated greenhouse gas inventory and will discuss the ways of minimizing its emissions in the main cities of Georgia. It will also assist the Government to better analyse Climate Change risks and to develop realistic scenarios for reducing its negative impact.
Under its Environment and Energy programme, UNDP is assisting Georgia in developing strategies and action plans for increasing the national potential to effectively implement the requirements of global conventions on climate change including: biodiversity conservation, the fight against desertification, the elaboration of a national plan on implementation of the Stockholm Convention of Persistent Organic Pollutants (POPs), and Kura-Aras basin preservation and integrated management plan. In cooperation with the Global Environment Facility and the German Bank for Reconstruction (KfW), UNDP also supports the Georgia’s energy sector.
UNDP's work in Georgia
The 8 Millennium Development Goals
- 1 Eradicate extreme hunger and poverty
- 2 Achieve universal primary education
- 3 Promote gender equality and empower women
- 4 Reduce child mortality
- 5 Improve maternal health
- 6 Combat HIV/AIDS, malaria and other diseases
- 7 Ensure environmental sustainability
- 8 Develop a global partnership for development
Targets for MDG7
- Integrate the principles of sustainable development into country policies and programmes; reverse loss of environmental resources
- Reduce biodiversity loss, achieving, by 2010, a significant reduction in the rate of loss
- Proportion of land area covered by forest and proportion of species threatened with extinction
- CO2 emissions, total, per capita and per $1 GDP (PPP)
- Consumption of ozone-depleting substances
- Proportion of fish stocks within safe biological limits
- Proportion of total water resources used
- Proportion of terrestrial and marine areas protected
- Reduce by half the proportion of people without sustainable access to safe drinking water and basic sanitation
- Proportion of population using an improved drinking water source
- Proportion of population using an improved sanitation facility
- Achieve significant improvement in lives of at least 100 million slum dwellers, by 2020
- Proportion of urban population living in slums