‘The State of Financing Development in the Arab region’ reveals that on average, for every $1 gained/mobilized through prime cross-border channels of financing for development (FfD), the Arab region lost/returned $2.5 to other regions, including high-income bracket economies. The situation challenges the dominating development narrative as the region appears to be witnessing an ‘FfD reflux’. Substantial resources are flowing out rather than into the region, constituting substantial leakages or, at best, an opportunity lost to finance the region’s own reconstruction and sustainable development imperatives.

The Arab region continues to face many challenges in its endeavour to embrace the principles of sustainable development. The rapid increase in population, acute water scarcity, food security, energy security, environmental deterioration, unsustainable consumption and production patterns in various sectors are the key persistent pressures that hinder the implementation of integrated policies in the region.

This background paper provides an overview of the scope, drivers and consequences of child marriage in the Arab region. It also discusses the importance of estimating the cost of child marriage, examines the feasibility of undertaking a costing study in the Arab region, and reviews the availability of data needed to implement such a task, as well as the appropriate framework to consider when approaching costing child marriage in the region.

This document is an extended summary of a publication on Tracking Food Security in the Arab Region using a Monitoring Framework developed by ESCWA in collaboration with member countries, AOAD and FAO and supported by Sida. It lays out the framework and its development and highlights that high- and middle-income Arab countries are concerned with overnutrition and low-income countries with undernutrition while hotspot areas needing immediate action include yields, food import dependency, prevalence of anemia among women and political instability.