ESCWA is convening the first “Model ESCWA” at 9:00 AM on Saturday, the 10th September 2016, at the UN House, Beirut. This project is held in partnership with the Centre for Civic Engagement and Community Service (CCECS) at the American University of Beirut (AUB).

United Nations Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCWA Rima Khalaf headed a ceremony at the UN House in Beirut to present the ESCWA Award on Advancing Gender Equality and the Empowerment of Women to four staff members of the commission. The event, which took place on Thursday 8 September 2016, marks the second time the award is granted by ESCWA. The commission has effectively adopted a holistic approach to mainstreaming gender perspectives in its plans, policies and programmes.

The first meeting of the ESCWA Inter-sessional Expert Group on Disability was held on 20-21 September 2016 at the UN-House in Beirut. The group was formed as a result of a call by the Committee on Social Development (CSD), which oversees the work of the Social Development Division of ESCWA, to intensify cooperation on disability policy between ESCWA and its member states.

Aware of the need to modernize and improve statistical production efficiency and quality, and following-up on the recommendation of its Statistical Committee in its eleventh session, ESCWA organized a regional workshop on "Statistical Business Registers for Arab Countries" in collaboration with the Arab Institute for Training and Research in Statistics, the UN Statistics Division, and the UN Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) on 26-29 September 2016, in Amman, Jordan.