Ayumi Fujino

I am glad to know that the World Bamboo Day and the North East International Bamboo Festival is to be celebrated in Nagaland during 16th - 18th September, 2010 with the initiative of the World Bamboo Organization (WBO) in collaboration with the Nagaland State Government.

Bamboo is found in abundance in many tropical countries, especially in Asia and its ability to grow readily is remarkable. The entire North Eastern India is a store house of bamboo and thus show great prospect for its promotion and development. For this reason, the UNIDO has also given due emphasis on this natural resource and in order to promote technology intervention in the sector, a project was initiated way back in 2000 in collaboration with various government agencies.

The 2nd phase of the project is ongoing with the Guwahati based CBTC as the implementing agency basically on cluster based livelihood development approach. Nagaland is one of the beneficiary and leading states in this project and I appreciate the state govt. for taking the lead in organizing this international event.

I fervently hope that the festival will give a boost to the initiative taken by the UNIDO for the application of bamboo for livelihood development of the people and wish the special publication of the C&B News a grand success.

(Ayumi Fujino)
UNIDO Representative & Regional Director  of South Asia