Introduction

With reference to ECO Secretariat note no. AIH/0141/2004/0862, dated 11May, 2004, and AIH/0141/2004/1521, dated 8 August, 2004, ECO Member States expressed their support to the proposal put forward by the Islamic Republic of Iran Meteorological Organization to establish a “Regional Center for Risk Management of Natural Disasters” at the National Center for Climatology in Mashhad, I. R. of Iran. Since climate change has resulted in severe droughts in the world during last years, especially in some ECO Member States, the necessity for the establishment of a Regional Center for Risk Management of Natural Disasters was approved by the 1^st ECO Ministerial Meeting on Agriculture (26-28 July, 2004, in Tehran, Iran) and the 3^rd ECO Ministerial Meeting on Agriculture (07 March, 2007 in Tehran, Iran) and the 17th Meeting of the ECO Council of Ministers (COM) ( (20 October, 2007 in Herat, Afghanistan). It was agreed to establish such a center in the National Center for Climatology (Mashhad) based on the proposal submitted by the I.R of Iran Meteorological Organization to the 2^nd ECO Ministerial Meeting (6-7 December, 2007, Antalya, Turkey). In the 16^th Meeting of the Regional Planning Council (RPC) held in January, 2006 in Tehran, the Council agreed on allocating ECO feasibility funds of 50,000USD to the establishment of a Regional Center for Risk Management of Natural Disasters from ECO Feasibility Funds. The Council appreciated the efforts made by the concerned authorities of the Islamic Republic of Iran for establishing a Regional Center for Risk Management of Natural Disasters (ECO – RCRM) in Mashhad, noting that the Center would be inaugurated during the first Meeting of the ECO Heads of Meteorological Organizations in September, 2007.