This study seeks to identify sources of the Arab region’s energy vulnerability that prevents member states’ ability to ensure universal access to affordable, reliable and modern energy services for current and future generations. The study also aims to assess strategies to tackle energy vulnerability effectively while providing a perspective on how different groups can contribute.

Around the world, even the greatest powers have opted to be part of larger regional entities in order to manage globalization and the competition it brings. Meanwhile, Arab countries which share a common historical, cultural and spiritual heritage and are bound by one language remain fragmented and divided and try to face individually external pressures, domestic challenges and emerging risks, in a world growing more interconnected and complex each day.

The Arab cities are experiencing fast transformation in their economic, social and architectural structures. That transformation encompasses many contradictions resulting from internal factors related to natural characteristics and external factors related to the economic globalization. On the one hand, the growing cities generate such economic development dynamics as employment opportunities and creative urban cultures. On the other hand, they face such growing challenges as inequity, violence, social exclusion and poverty.

ESCWA Disability Framework: 115 indicators to bridge the gap between policy and statistics, is the first three-dimensional disability framework that maps disability-related indicators to three major development frameworks: the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, the Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. The Framework and its 115 indicators embodies a major step forward in bridging the gap between policy and statistics and monitor progress made. The Framework will be an important tool for guiding efforts at the national, regional and global levels to harmonize the production of comparable data. It will facilitate reporting on the situation of persons with disabilities in critical disability-inclusive development goals. These include inclusive education, employment, empowerment, health and justice. The framework will, through improved disability statistics, provide a clearer picture to compare persons with disabilities and those with no disabilities. The framework will also assist data producers to provide valuable and better information for policymakers to ensure that all people with disabilities everywhere and anywhere are indeed included.