Following the last EGM held on 14-15 September 2019 in Tunis; ESCWA’s Libya SED integrated, as agreed, the set of broad arrays of priorities which were identified by the authors of the papers and discussants into thematic areas which encapsulated the harmonization of these priorities in the agenda below.
 
The opening session of the meeting will present the progress made so far, the challenges encountered, and upcoming planned activities. It will help participants familiarize (and engage) themselves further with the project’s mission and stages.
 
The objective of the following sessions of the meeting in the agenda which will be led by ESCWA moderators and Libyan discussants will be aimed at having a detailed discussion and exchange feedback and comments on the draft developed integrated thematic areas and their components and solidify their content and to discuss and exchange their views and provide their feedback on the overall thematic areas which will then be the basis for drafting discussion papers in preparation for the dialogue sessions beginning of year 2020. These sessions will also feature miscellaneous additional recommendations that need further consideration that could benefit the Libya project and feed into the socioeconomic and governance aspects of the future work to be done.

The report adopts a multidimensional approach to assess outcome and opportunity inequality in the Arab states across non-income dimensions.

The Expert Group Meeting is organized by ESCWA in cooperation with UNCTAD. The participants included high-level economists and experts from Arab universities and think tanks and representatives of Arab regional and sub-regional organizations such as the League of Arab States and the Arab Maghreb Union. The meeting aimed to critically review the drafts of the recurrent publication on the third edition of assessing Arab economic integration and the non-recurrent publication on trade costs in the Arab region. The meeting discussed also the findings of the World Investment Report 2019 prepared by UNCTAD.