The United nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN-ESCWA), and in partnership with United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction’s Regional Office for Arab States (UNISDR/ROAS), is organizing an Expert Group Meeting on Coordinating Responses to Climate Change and Disaster Risk Reduction in the Arab Region, at the UN-House in Beirut, Lebanon from 19 to 20 December 2017.
 
The meeting aims to:

• Present an overview of the CC and DRR global agendas and regional initiatives;
• Investigate possible connections between CCA and DRR (terminologies, assessment tools, modelling, time scale, institutional and legal settings, etc.);
• Present the methodology for possible linkage of the RICCAR extreme climate indices projections and historical Disaster Loss Databases for selected Arab countries;
• Discuss the analysis results of mapping and overlaying hotspot areas for both CC and DRR as a tool for validation of future impacts and to inform decision makers about highly vulnerable areas;
• Discuss measures needed to strengthen resilience for identified priority regions in selected Arab countries based on the analysis conducted;
• Present case studies on national initiatives and institutional settings for CCA and DRR in the Arab countries;
• Propose means of implementation to ensure efficient linkages between CCA and DRR (regional and national contexts);
• Introduce suggested areas for improved policy coherence across both fields and propose the way forward.