“The Arab World today is at a crossroads between promises and threats, promises of welfare and progress and threats of wars and terrorism… There are forces pulling the Arab region backwards, and in the meantime, there are forces pushing strongly towards change… They realise that development is a long-term project, and that sustaining development and maintaining it is harder than launching it.”
 

Beirut, 25 July 2018 (Communication and Information Unit)-- In its periodic report on the Israeli occupation in Palestine and the Golan, the United Nations described Israeli practices and policies in the Arab territories occupied since 1967 as discriminatory and violating international law. It considered that some of those practices and policies may amount to war crimes according to the Fourth Geneva Convention.

On 19 July 2013, ESCWA Director of the Emerging and Conflict-Related Issues Division Tarik Alami presented to the UN Economic and Social Council the Note of the Secretary-General on the economic and social repercussions of the Israeli occupation on the living conditions of the Palestinian people in the Occupied Palestinian Territory, including East Jerusalem, and the Arab population in the occupied Syrian Golan, which is prepared by ESCWA on yearly basis.

Within the framework of the “Regional Initiative for Promoting Small-Scale Renewable Energy Applications in Rural Areas of the Arab Region (REGEND)” Project, the UN Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), in partnership with the Municipality of Chaqdouf, is organizing a capacity-building workshop on “Financial Management, Accounting, and the Economic Benefits of Access to Sustainable and Secure Energy”.
 
This workshop will build the capacities of the rural women in Chaqdouf in the fields of financial management, accounting, cost accounting, and pricing of rural products. The workshop will also demonstrate the economic benefits of sustainable and secure energy, and its positive impact on rural development in Lebanon.