Identifier
Created
Classification
Origin
05AMMAN1649
2005-02-27 15:22:00
UNCLASSIFIED//FOR OFFICIAL USE ONLY
Embassy Amman
Cable title:  

NEA ESTH Conference Links ESTH To Full Range of

Tags:  SENV ETRD KPAO TBIO KHIV SOCI JO XF 
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UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 AMMAN 001649 

SIPDIS

STATE FOR NEA/PPD
STATE ALSO FOR OES/PCI/Ellen Shaw
STATE PASS USAID/ANE/John Wilson
INTERIOR FOR International/Washburne
INTERIOR FOR USGS/International
COMMERCE FOR NOAA/International/Ware-Harris

SENSITIVE

TAGS: SENV ETRD KPAO TBIO KHIV SOCI JO XF
SUBJECT: NEA ESTH Conference Links ESTH To Full Range of
Diplomatic Goals, Skills

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 AMMAN 001649

SIPDIS

STATE FOR NEA/PPD
STATE ALSO FOR OES/PCI/Ellen Shaw
STATE PASS USAID/ANE/John Wilson
INTERIOR FOR International/Washburne
INTERIOR FOR USGS/International
COMMERCE FOR NOAA/International/Ware-Harris

SENSITIVE

TAGS: SENV ETRD KPAO TBIO KHIV SOCI JO XF
SUBJECT: NEA ESTH Conference Links ESTH To Full Range of
Diplomatic Goals, Skills


1. (SBU) Summary: Thirty-eight officers from a range of U.S.
departments and NEA missions met in Wadi Mousa, Jordan
February 2-3 for a workshop to discuss U.S. environment,
science, technology and health (ESTH) priorities in the
region. The workshop provided an opportunity for
participants to explore the role of ESTH issues in advancing
USG goals for sustainable development, economic and
political stability. The event also boosted participants'
understanding of the USG's ESTH priorities, provided success
stories and lessons learned, promoted State-USAID
cooperation, and provided a forum for dialogue between
Washington and the field, and networking among NEA posts.
End summary.


2. OES PDAS Bud Rock and EPA Assistant Administrator Judith
Ayres co-chaired a February 2-3 workshop of Embassy and
USAID Mission representatives from 10 countries in the NEA
region and five USG agencies. The goals were to acquaint
the participants with key ESTH issues in the region and to
provide practical "tools of the trade" to effectively
advance USG ESTH priorities. Several overriding themes
emerged:

- ESTH work promotes USG goals across the board. This
includes political goals such as good governance and civil
society, economic goals such as free markets and trade, and
development goals including health. Even non-traditional
partners such as the military often have an interest in ESTH
issues.

- ESTH efforts and the broad context of sustainable
development are people-oriented and play an important role
in helping to improve the quality of life at home and
abroad.

- USG employees engaged in ESTH work need the full range of
diplomatic skills to understand the issues, report on them
and build the partnerships to address them.

--------------
Knowing the Issues and the Players
--------------

3. One focal point of the conference was to educate the
participants on ESTH issues and the USG bureaus that work on

those issues so that officers and FSNs can tap the knowledge
and resources of the appropriate bureaus when necessary.
Overseas counterparts are often interested in how the United
States deals with particular issues. This means USG
employees working on ESTH issues overseas need to be
familiar with the U.S. domestic context and to be able to
find out more about it. At the conference, due to the
presence of experts from these agencies, special attention
was paid to strengthening ties between State, USAID, EPA,
USDA and the Department of Interior. But ESTH officers in
the field were encouraged to tap USG expertise in any of the
USG technical agencies. The shift away from infrastructure
towards a policy and legal framework for ESTH issues makes
these intra-USG contacts crucial.

--------------
Telling America's Environmental Story Abroad
--------------

4. Another focal area of the conference was linking ESTH
issues and public diplomacy. As part of the USG "Muslim
World Outreach" initiative, State has been developing a
component focusing on ESTH cooperation, which is useful for
public outreach to NEA countries because U.S. scientific and
technical expertise is held in high esteem throughout the
Muslim world. ESTH-related issues such as the tsunami are
often at the center of public attention, and thus represent
a public showcase for American expertise, values, policies
and technology.


5. The United States has an environmental record second to
none, and the public diplomacy "toolbox" has the information
to back that up. American environmental policy and actions
include not only the government but also the private sector,
NGO's, the international arena and grassroots volunteers.
This makes it important to present the U.S. environmental
situation in its full context, not just in its governmental
aspects. Please refer to http://infocentral.state.gov (USG
only and password protected but unclassified) and
http://usinfo.state.gov (public).

--------------
More to Climate Change Than Kyoto
--------------

6. Participants in the workshop discussed climate change,
an issue for which the U.S. has a good story to tell,
despite the fact that the U.S. is frequently criticized for
not ratifying the Kyoto Protocol. The USG has a large and
wide-ranging commitment to climate change. This includes
USD5 billion spent on climate change science and policy in
FY05, and programs such as the International Partnership for
the Hydrogen Economy and the "Methane-to-Markets" program.
--------------
Health Issue Links ESTH, Development
--------------

7. Health specialists from USAID/Amman and OES's Office of
International Health Affairs led participants in a
discussion of health issues. While HIV/AIDS in the region
has low prevalence, we need to work with host governments to
keep it that way. Maternal and mother-child health issues
affect many people, and correlate with other ESTH issues
such as access to clean water.

--------------
OES Committed to Supporting the Field
--------------

8. OES PDAS Rock emphasized OES's commitment to supplying
information that officers need in the field. He mentioned
OES's "Issue Briefs" intranet site (see "Issue Briefs" under
http://oes.state.gov/) as a useful tool for field officers.
That site provides brief, issue-by-issue summaries, points
of contact for individual issues, and the top issues for
each country. The public diplomacy intranet and internet
sites mentioned above are another useful source of
information.


9. Participants in the conference discussion said it would
be useful for them to have an OES cable "chron" and to have
more effort in disseminating reports and information about
USG-funded grants and projects in the region, in order to
promote coordination. Talking points or a vocabulary list
in Arabic would save translation time in the field on
technical demarches, said participants. Rock said OES was
open to comments from the field about what works and what
doesn't, and what training is necessary.


10. Documents from the conference and other ESTH
information are available through the NEA ESTH Hub web page
at Embassy Amman's intranet site. See:
(http://10.194.1.7/env_hub/home.htm).

HALE