Beirut, 7 July 2011 (United Nations Information Service) – A United Nations report released today on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) showed that Western Asia made good progress in improving the survival and health of mothers and children, as maternal deaths declined by 52 percent between 1990 and 2008 largely due to increases in skilled attendance at birth, skilled antenatal care and contraceptive use, as well as a drop in adolescent childbearing.

In the presence of representatives of member countries, international, regional and civil organizations, as well as experts concerned with water resources, UN-ESCWA opened today the eighth session of its Committee on Water Resources, which convenes until Friday 19 December 2008. AlDafa Addressing the meeting, Executive Secretary Bader Omar AlDafa said in his opening statement “the issue of water resources stands among crucial ones in the region. It is one of the priorities of UN-ESCWA work.

ESCWA organized an Expert Group Meeting on Short Term Statistics from 16 to18 February, 2016 in Amman, Jordan. The meeting was held in the context of the project “Strengthening the Statistical Capacity of ESCWA Member Countries in Producing and Disseminating Short-term Economic Indicators for Sustainable Growth,” in coordination with the United Nations Statistics Division (UNSD).

ESCWA held on 8 and 9 May 2017 at the UN House in Beirut an Expert Group Meeting (EGM) to conjure a common scope, definition, working parameters and methodology to qualify and quantify Illicit Financial Flows (IFFs) and trade misinvoicing since, to date, there is no multilaterally agreed upon definition of IFFs or an agreed-on methodology for their measurement.