During World Summit on Sustainable Development, Korean Environment Minister Myung Ja Kim and Klaus Toepfer, United Nations Under Secretary General, met and agreed upon implementing Prevention and Control of Dust and Sandstorm(DSS) in North East Asia with a budget of 1 million dollars from this year. Korea, China, Mongolia and Japan will take part in this project to facilitate early warning system for DSS and demonstration projects for mitigating DSS.

The project is prepared by international partnership comprising United Nations Environment Program(UNEP), Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific(ESCAP), Asian Development Bank(ADB), United Nations Convention on Combat to Desertification(UNCCD) and four countries including the People's Republic of China(PRC), Japan, Republic of Korea and Mongolia. Three main components of this projects are;

- establishing a regional cooperation mechanism that is supported with operational coordination capacity,

- preparing a development program for establishing a regional monitoring and early warning network for DSS in Northeast Asia, and

- Developing a regional master plan and an investment program for DSS demonstration projects in PRC and Mongolia.

Along with financial support from ADB(U.S.$ 500,000), Global Environment Facility (GEF) will finance this project(U.S. $ 500,000), as Ministry of Environment has suggested since April this year as Minister of Environment persuaded Klaus Toepfer during UNCSD meetings. In addition, Korea, China and Japan agreed upon the necessity of funding from GEF, and sent a letter to UNEP to promote participation and support.

Korean Ministry of Environment will prepare a comprehensive measures for this matter and held a national meeting with participation from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Ministry of Finance and Economy, and Korea Meteorological Administration.