Amman Hosts Prominent Regional Event on Sustainable Development

His Royal Highness Prince Al Hassan Bin Talal will deliver a keynote speech on Wednesday 2 April 2014 before a crowd of officials from the government, the United Nations and its specialized agencies, the League of Arab States, financing institutions, and the civil society, at the opening of the “Arab High Level Forum on Sustainable Development” held in Hotel Kempinski, Amman, until Friday 4 April 2014. The purpose of the meeting, organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) in cooperation with the Ministries of Planning and International Cooperation and of Environment in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan, the League of Arab States and the United Nations Environment Program, is the preparation for an effective Arab participation in the second session of the High-Level Political Forum on sustainable Development (HLPF), which will be held during the next session of the UN Economic and Social Council (New York, July 2014). The Amman Forum will brief participants about the most prominent international developments and the progress achieved in global and regional consultative processes, and future steps with regard to sustainable development goals and the post-2015 development agenda. In particular, the Forum will provide a platform to discuss the following: • A proposal that is under preparation by ESCWA on a set of sustainable development goals for the Arab Region. The proposal reflects the outcomes of consultations led by ESCWA on the subject, in addition to the key conclusions emanating from the various regional and national consultations on the post-2015 development agenda. • The proposed Arab Strategic Framework for Sustainable Development that ESCWA and its partners are developing at the request of CAMRE as an update of the Sustainable Development Initiative in the Arab Region, which has provided a regional framework for coordinated action on sustainable development over the last decade. • The Arab Regional Roadmap for Green Economy Investment. • Progress made in the Arab region towards the millennium development goals and means of accelerating their achievement and sustaining gains in the future, as part of Arab regional preparations for the Annual Ministerial Review (AMR) in 2014. • Other important issues that are of relevance to sustainable development in the Arab region. It is expected that the Council of Arab Ministers Responsible for the Environment (CAMRE) will discuss the outcomes of this Forum during a special session to be held in May 2014, following which it is hoped that these outcomes would be adopted and submitted to the next Arab Economic and Social Development Summit, in which is planned for 2015.The report of the Forum will also be submitted to the ESCWA twenty-eighth Ministerial Session (June 2014). ESCWA is one of the five UN regional commissions. It provides a framework for the formulation and harmonization of sectoral policies for member countries; a platform for congress and coordination; a home for expertise and knowledge, and an information observatory. ESCWA aims at supporting economic and social cooperation between the region’s countries and promoting development process in order to achieve regional integration. Libya, the Kingdom of Morocco and the Republic of Tunisia became members of ESCWA in September 2012. By this new membership, the number of ESCWA countries rose to 17, including: Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, The Sudan, The Syrian Arab Republic, The United Arab Emirates and Yemen. For more information, please visit: http://www.escwa.un.org/information/meetingdetails.asp?referenceNum=3315E