World leaders are gathering in New York between 20 and 22 September to review progress in meeting the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), a range of targets to fight poverty, hunger and disease set in 2000. Over three days, more than 130 heads of state and government are assessing what has been achieved and what is needed to meet the goals by the 2015 deadline.

During the ESCWA 29th Session held on 13-15 December 2016, ESCWA presented the guide that it is currently preparing to incorporate social justice principles into development plans in Arab countries. The guide aims to inform officials in charge of the formulation of policies and plans in Member States on how to integrate the social justice concepts and principles in their national development policies and plans and to explain the link between social justice and the implementation of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development and of relevant international conventions.

‘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.

As is customary since 1993, the United Nations celebrated World Water Day on 22 March. In Lebanon, ESCWA marked the day through a seminar held at the UN House in Beirut under the theme: “Water for Cities: Responding to the Urban Challenge.” Lebanese Minister of Water and Energy Gebran Bassil gave patronage to the event, which was co-organized by the Association of the Friends of Ibrahim Abdel Al (AFIAL) and the German Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (BGR).