On 25 February 2014, UN Undersecretary General and ESCWA Executive Secretary Rima Khalaf launched from Tunis a remarkable report entitled “Arab Integration: A 21st Century Development Imperative” with the participation of Tunisian President Moncef Marzouki, former Lebanese Prime Minister Najib Mikati and a crowd of political, economic, intellectual and public figures. Media representatives who took part in the ceremony received a press kit, which we will re-publish over five parts, in view of the importance of the issues the Report addresses.

Lebanese House Speaker Nabih Berri today praised the Executive Secretary of the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA), Ms. Mervat Tallawy, for having provided her effort in promoting regional integration and helping consolidate stability in Lebanon through continued support by UNESCWA. He also pointed out that Tallawy was the first Executive Secretary of UNESCWA who headed to South Lebanon with a field project aimed at promoting Technology and who provided efforts in Lebanon receiving the UN reconstruction award in 2004.

Within the framework of the Regional Initiative for the Assessment of the Impact of Climate Change on Water Resources and Socio-Economic Vulnerability in the Arab Region (RICCAR), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (SIDA) is supporting a three-year multi-institutional collaborative project on the same topic. The SIDA-ESCWA Project is a central component of the Regional Initiative, which has been adopted as an inter-agency initiative by United Nations and League of Arab States organizations that is reported upon to the Arab Ministerial Water Council.