The fourth regional training workshop within the framework of RICCAR on "Moving from Climate Change Impact Assessment to Socio-Economic Vulnerability Assessment in the Arab Region" will be held at the United Nations House in Beirut during the period 8-10 June 2015 within the framework of the Sida project support to RICCAR.  This workshop is organized within the framework of the Sida project support to RICCAR and implemented by ESCWA in collaboration with the LAS, ACSAD, GIZ, SMHI, UNESCO Office in Cairo, UNISDR and the WMO. 

It aims to provide a training on the use of regional climate modelling and hydrological modelling outputs to support socio-economic vulnerability assessment in the Arab region and training on how to draw upon the vulnerability assessment indicators and mapping layers that will be made available on the RICCAR Regional Knowledge Hub.

To that effect, discussions during the meeting will focus on the following key elements:

• Accessing and understanding regional climate modelling and hydrological modelling outputs;
• Key components of vulnerability assessment: exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity;
• Identifying sectors and selecting indicators for conducting vulnerability assessments;
• Preparing a vulnerability index, including classification and normalization of data, data quality and aggregation methods;
• Using geographic information system tools to support integrated vulnerability mapping;
• Preliminary findings from the RICCAR vulnerability assessment;
• Establishing a RICCAR Regional Knowledge Hub;

The Arab Integrated Water Resources Management Network (AWARENET) would like to offer a platform to assist in moving the existing tools for vulnerability assessments of the impact of climate change on water resources "from assessment to implementation". Therefore, the network invites interested participants of the RICCAR workshop and AWARENET members to a side meeting on Wednesday, 10 June 2015 to discuss the potential for a new AWARENET Working Group on Climate Change (WG CC) with the aim to initiate dialogue between RICCAR participants and AWARENET members on their potential interest to make use of such a platform in the future. For more information, please refer to the below flyer.