A/RES/54/223 Page 5 actors to support the efforts of affected developing countries in the processes of elaborating and implementing action programmes to combat desertification, including, as appropriate, interregional programmes and platforms of cooperation, by providing them with financial resources and other forms of assistance; 22. Welcomes the progress made in producing a draft additional regional implementation annex to the Convention for the countries of Eastern and Central Europe with a view to adopting it at the fourth session of the Conference of the Parties, and invites those countries to continue their efforts towards acceding to the Convention; 23. Encourages the conferences of the parties to the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change, 6 the Convention on Biological Diversity7 and the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, particularly in Africa, to examine further appropriate opportunities and measures to strengthen the complementarities and to improve scientific assessments of ecological linkages among the three conventions; 24. Also encourages the secretariats of various environmental and environment-related conventions and other international organizations, with full respect for the statutes of the respective convention secretariats and the autonomous decision-making prerogatives of the conferences of the parties to the conventions concerned, to strengthen cooperation with a view to facilitating progress in their implementation at the international, regional, subregional and national levels; 25. Requests the Secretary-General to report to the General Assembly at its fifty-fifth session on the implementation of the present resolution, as well as on the outcome of the third session of the Conference of the Parties; 26. Reminds the States parties to the Convention that, in accordance with General Assembly decision 52/445 of 18 December 1997, beginning in 2000, the conferences of the parties to the conventions signed at the United Nations Conference on Environment and Development or established as a result of the Conference, as well as other conventions relating to sustainable development, shall take all appropriate measures to avoid convening their sessions and those of their subsidiary bodies during the sessions of the General Assembly; 27. Decides to include in the provisional agenda of its fifty-fifth session the sub-item entitled “Implementation of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification in those Countries Experiencing Serious Drought and/or Desertification, particularly in Africa”. 6 7 A/AC.237/18 (Part II)/Add.1 and Corr.1, annex I. See United Nations Environment Programme, Convention on Biological Diversity (Environmental Law and Programme Activity Centre), June 1992. /...