On 29 and 30 March 2011, ESCWA held an Expert Group Meeting on “Mainstreaming Gender in the Plans and Programmes of the Ministries of Labour in Selected ESCWA Member Countries” at the UN House in Beirut. The two-day meeting was a follow-up to a workshop on gender mainstreaming and organizational change for participants from labour ministries and national women machineries in six member countries - Bahrain, Kuwait, Lebanon, Palestine, Qatar, Sudan and Syria - that was organized in August 2010.

Chapters of the world-famous Lions Clubs in Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq held a ceremony in Beirut on 12 April to honor the UN System in Lebanon on the occasion of the “UN Lions Day” where representatives of three UN agencies boasted of achievements of their organizations before a large audience of ministers, ambassadors, Lions members, UN staff and others.

ESCWA participated in a UN Day organized by the UN Information Center (UNIC Beirut) and the Lebanese American University (LAU) at the latter's Beirut campus 27 April in which 17 UN agencies and programs participated. A ceremony launching the event was attended by ambassadors, diplomats, media representatives, UN officials as well as faculty members, students and alumni of LAU.

Speak your mind in pictures! If you have ideas for a more sustainable UN and fancy yourself a photographer, share your pictures with us and be an agent of change. To celebrate the World Environment Day 2011, Greening the Blue – a UN program to make all its agencies climate neutral and green - and the UN Photographic Society have joined forces to launch the first in-house photographic competition that celebrates and inspires efforts to make the UN more sustainable. Visions of a Sustainable UN is the central theme of this photo competition.