Within the framework of the Regional Initiative for the Assessment of the Impact of Climate Change on Water Resources and Socio-Economic Vulnerability in the Arab Region (RICCAR), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) is supporting a three-year multi-institutional collaborative project on the same topic. The SIDA-ESCWA Project is a central component of the Regional Initiative, which has been adopted as an inter-agency initiative by United Nations and League of Arab States organizations that is reported upon to the Arab Ministerial Water Council. Launched in December 2010, the SIDA funded project is lead by ESCWA which is responsible for coordinating and managing project implementation and reporting. ESCWA is also responsible of ensuring that the preparation and implementation of the project outputs are appropriately communicated to the regional initiative partners and associated regional mechanisms.

 A. OBJECTIVES

In view of achieving its development goals, the project will achieve four immediate objectives in terms of expected accomplishments:

1. Establishment of a regional knowledge hub for climate and water resource information and modeling in the Arab region - this will require the compilation and review of historic and current data related to climate and water resources in the region, with particular focus placed on information that is necessary to support climate and hydrological modeling in the Arab region. This will include the establishment of a knowledge management system for storing historical data, baseline data as well as the information generated from climate change projections, hydrological scenarios and vulnerability assessments conducted during the regional initiative, including geospatial maps.
2. Identification of expected climate change impacts on water resources in the Arab region and associated vulnerability hot spots - this would entail the application of an integrated assessment that would involve linking a regional climate model (RCM) to a set of hydrological models for scenario development at the Arab regional level. This will result in the generation of five climate change projections that are each linked to two to three regional hydrological models to secure a good picture of the expected impacts of climate change on freshwater resources in the Arab region during the coming years. The information generated by the impact assessment would contribute to the identification of vulnerability hotspots and inform the preparation of a socio-economic and environmental vulnerability assessment through the regional initiative. 
3. Improved capacity and institutional networking for climate change and water resource monitoring and adaptation - this would include assisting ministries of water and environment to strengthen their institutional capacity to examine and coordinate policies and priorities for responding to the impact of climate change on freshwater resources. The project would also seek to strengthen regional networks and institutions responsible for monitoring and reporting on climate and climate change in the Arab region.
4. Increased awareness and access to information about climate change impacts on water resources in the Arab region - this would focus on developing policy-oriented, user-friendly tools and packages to present the key findings and messages generated by the impact assessment to targeted stakeholders and decision-makers. Geo-spatial maps will be generated to help convey technical material in accessible and policy relevant formats. Project information and documentation would be disseminated in hard copy as well as through electronic and web-based media.

B. PILLARS