GA REGIONAL

Republic of Chad

Representation of the Republic of Chad before the Regional Committee of the General Assembly

School: Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Ciudad de México

Committee: General Assembly - Regional Committee

Topic: United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Earth Summit / Rio+20)

Country: Republic of Chad

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Official Name: Republic of Chad “République du Tchad / Jumhuriyat Tshad “

Type of Government: Republic

Capital: N'Djamena

Chief of State: President Lt. Gen. Idriss Deby Itno

Head of Government: Prime Minister Emmanuel Nadingar

International Affiliations: ACP, AfDB, AU, BDEAC, CEMAC, FAO, FZ, G-77, IAEA, IBRD, ICAO, ICRM, IDA, IDB, IFAD, IFC, IFRCS, ILO, IMF, Interpol, IOC, ITSO, ITU, ITUC, MIGA, NAM, OIC, OIF, OPCW, UN, UNCTAD, UNESCO, UNIDO, UNOCI, UNWTO, UPU, WCO, WHO, WIPO, WMO, WTO

Currency:  Communauté Financière Africaine Franc (XAF)

GDP: $19.69 billion USD

GDP Per capita: $1900 USD

Area: 1.284 million sq Km.

Population: 10,975,648 inhabitants

Official Language: French (official), Arabic (official), Sara (in south); more than 120 different languages and dialects.

Religion: Muslim 53.1%, Catholic 20.1%, Protestant 14.2%, animist 7.3%, other 0.5%, unknown 1.7%, atheist 3.1%.

Agriculture:  Oil, cotton textiles, meatpacking, brewing, natron (sodium carbonate), soap,

cigarettes, construction materials.

Drinking water source: Improved: urban 67% of population, rural 44% of population, total 50% of population; Unimproved: urban 33% of population, rural 56% of population, total 50% of population.

Median age: total: 16.8 years, male: 15.6 years, female: 17.9 years.

Population growth rate: 1.98% (2012)

Age structure: 0-14 years: 46% (male 2,510,656/ female 2,447,780)

15- 64 years: 51% (male 2,531,896/ female 2,960,406).

55 years and over: 2.9% (male 138,805/ female 182,402)

Birth rate: 98.7 births/ 1,000 population

Death rate: 15.16 deaths/1,000 population

Exports: Oil, cotton, cattle, and acacia gum.

Natural sources: National oil reserves are estimated at 1.5 billion barrels.

Geographic situation: A landlocked country. Northern Chad is hot and arid, the central section has three seasons - hot summers from March to July; rain from July to October (from 250 to 750 mm) while the remaining months experience cool weather. Lake Chad is the only lake in the country; it covers only approximately 2500 square kilometers and is about half as deep as it once was at 3 feet rather than 6 feet.

International Disputes and Conflicts: Border delimitation is a resource problem with neighboring countries. Only Nigeria and Cameroon heeded the Lake Chad Comission’s admonition to ratify the delimitation treaty, which also includes the Chad-Niger and Niger-Nigeria boundaries.

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School: Tecnológico de Monterrey, Campus Ciudad de México
Committee: General Assembly - Regional Committee
Topic: United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development
Country: Republic of Chad

Document issued by the Chadian Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Sustainable development has built itself as a trending topic through the past two decades. The entire world is really concerned about walking towards a green attitude; developing an economic model that is environmentally friendly, a political commitment to sustainability and the challenges and activities each country faces to promote an economic growth and a social development respectful of natural capital and the lack of natural resources are issues of the essence. Efforts towards the protection and improvement of the environment have taken momentum with the 20th anniversary of the Rio Accords. In the context of economic crisis and natural disasters, discussing the pursue of green economies is of special interest to African countries. Land extension, the radical change of agricultural methods, economic activities, resource depletion and foreign investment are of great and particular interest to Chad.  

African countries are quite concerned in developing green economies as the only way to procure economic growth, employment and the reduction of poverty and inequality. The main topic African nations can center on is Sustainable land use in order to avoid soil exhaustion through agricultural activities. Chad is interested in sustainable land and water management practices that improve productivity within capacity. African nations are vital for providing natural resources to developed nations, thus in the need of not only investment but technology transfers and assistance on all levels towards the safeguard of natural resources. For instance, since Chad is the fifth poorest country in the world, help of developed nations in the enforcement of law on their own transnational corporations on these matters is of the greatest importance.

Lake Chad basin -a common source of water for Cameroon, Niger, Nigeria and the Central African Republic has been severely struck by draught attributable to climate change, thus degrading productive ecosystems and natural resources, affecting fishing and farming as well. Further on, continued conflict in neighboring Libya has caused a disruption in the flow of remittances to Chad’s impoverished and struck agricultural regions, which rely almost exclusively on Chadians living abroad.

As a developing nation, Chad is not considered a significant source of greenhouse effect emissions. However, this and its impoverished condition do not prevent it from trying to improve in important areas, such as improving its capacity to refine oil -in cooperation with China- and granting water access notwithstanding current shortages.

Since 2003, Chad has been exporting oil thanks to a massive external investment led by ExxonMobile and the World Bank. At the beginning it was considered a window of opportunity for development because of its continuous linkages with the rest of the economy, and profits thereon generated.

To promote sustainable development in the lake Chad basin, the African Development Bank provided a grant for about half the funding of a 6-year $95 million Lake Chad Sustainable Development Support Program that began in 2009. The project will allow several improvements: clean out the Vrick canal to augment the volume of water flowing into the lake; undertake feasibility and implementation studies on transferring waters from the Oubangui River in the Central African Republic to the lake and undertake studies to reduce the water losses provoked by the many small dams built on the waterways feeding the lake. The program will also try to restore the productivity of the lake’s ecosystems by fixing sand dunes over 8000 hectares and attempting to combat erosion over 27000 hectares, and also trying to stop outgrowing vegetation currently choking the lake.

In order to achieve better development and combat poverty and lack of resources, Chad considers the following proposals to be of utmost importance within this forum:

• The promotion of international investment in order to facilitate transition towards a green economy with a clear understanding of the costs and benefits for the country; such transition can be boosted through the promotion of Chad-made products within the international market. Within climate change adaptation, the improvement in the design of Climate Adaptation Plans -CAPs- is to be locally adapted for the purpose of international investment, strategically searching to benefit from innovative financing in order to benefit the most from developed countries’ support.
• The implementation of appropriate and sustainable technologies such as improved irrigation models, the introduction of new technologies for agricultural practice and in the planning of industrial growth within environmentally friendly practice.
• The constant connection with NGOs in order to create an institutional framework and  to promote non-biased views, assistance and inputs required for further incentives for sustainable development, along with an increased access to market products, improving processing standards and promoting eco-labeling.
• The pursuit and planning of a sustainable industrial growth that balances the environmental, social and economic costs of industrialization.
• The grand scale promotion of worldwide technology transfer to the agricultural practice.
• The promotion on the use of organic inputs, small scale production systems, with low volumes of fertilizers and pesticides.

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