DOHA, Oct. 12 (Xinhua) -- Doha will host on Sunday the founding conference for the Global Dryland Alliance (GDA) with the participation of 25 countries and some international organizations, Qatar News Agency (QNA) reported Thursday.
The participating countries are from the Middle East, Africa, Central and Eastern Asia, as well as South America, the report said.
At the conference, the founding treaty of the new international organization, which will deal with food security of dryland countries, will be signed, the report said.
The participating countries supported the initiative to establish the alliance at the ministerial conference held in Marrakesh, Morocco, in May 2015.
Once founded, the GDA will assist in establishing broad cooperation with partners locally, regionally and internationally to find, deploy and implement solutions to the challenges of agriculture and water energy in dryland countries.
In addition, it will develop public-private partnerships to finance and implement programs and projects of member states in various areas related to food security.
Dryland countries constitute about 40 percent of the total land surface of the Earth and are home to almost 3 billion people, one third of whom are directly dependent on agriculture for their living.
