ESCWA is convening a session on “Informing the SDGs through the Arab MDG+ Initiative” as part of the MENA Focus days organized within the World Water Week by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI) and taking place from 28 August to 2 September 2016 in Stockholm. The event is planned for Wednesday August 31st in collaboration with the Arab Countries Water Utilities Association (ACWUA), the League of Arab States (LAS) and with the support of the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA). The MENA Focus days event is dedicated to water and sustainable growth in the Middle East and North Africa, aiming to enhance experience and knowledge sharing as well as to promote MENA priority issues in the global water agenda.

The fifteenth session of the Committee on Transport represented a continuation of the efforts made by the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) in the field of transport, given the effective role of transport in achieving regional integration. At this session, the Committee reviewed the progress made in that regard since its fourteenth session, which was held in Amman on 9 and 10 October 2013.

The international community has been seeking to establish legal frameworks for improving the management of shared water resources. For instance, the Convention on the Law of the Non-Navigational Uses of International Watercourses, adopted by the United Nations General Assembly (UNGA) in May 1997 (but not yet in force), and the draft articles of the Law of Transboundary Aquifers, which were reviewed by the UNGA in December 2008, propose legal frameworks for managing shared surface and groundwater resources based on international water law principles.