Under the auspices of H.E. Eng. Sultan Bin Said Al-Mansouri, the Minister of Governmental Sector Development and Chairman of the Board of the National Transport Authority (NTA) in UAE, a final seminar of the UN Development Account Project on "Capacity Building through Cooperation in Developing Land and Land-Sea Interregional Transport Linkages" will take place at the Armed Forces Officers Club, in Abu Dhabi during 23-25 October 2007. This seminar is organized by the United Nations' Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) in cooperation with the National Transport Authority (NTA), Abu Dhabi, United Arab Emirates, the United Nations' Economic Commission for Europe (ECE), Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific (ESCAP) and Economic Commission for Africa (ECA). The opening session for the seminar of the workshop will begin at 9:30 sharp.
The seminar is the final meeting of the United Nations Development Account project. The Project is jointly implemented by the United Nations regional commissions with ESCWA being the overall coordinator. Participating countries in the ESCWA region include Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Palestine, Saudi Arabia, Syria, United Arab Emirates, and Yemen. From ECE region, participating countries are Bulgaria, Moldova, Turkey and Ukraine. From ESCAP region, participating countries are Iran, Kyrgyzstan and Uzbekistan. And from ECA region, participating countries are Congo, Cote d'Ivoire, and Tanzania.
The objective of the Project is to assist the concerned member countries of the UN regional commissions (37 countries) in developing interregional transport linkages and to facilitate interregional trade and tourism. The Project has an infrastructure component through which an inter-regional transport network has been defined and agreed, and a transport facilitation component.
The Meeting's main objective is to wrap up the project by reviewing lessons learned and identifying the best practices from each region for implementing the inter-regional transport linkages identified through the project and facilitating transport and trade along these routes particularly at border points. Based on this, the Meeting reviews Geographic Information System (GIS) maps, databases, and application software of the interregional transport linkages. Good practices in the respective regions will be shared at the meeting together with lessons learnt from the project.
The Meeting will be attended primarily by the project focal points that were officially nominated by their respective countries in the ECA, ECE, ESCAP and ESCWA regions. Other national officials concerned with the development of transport infrastructure and facilitation at interregional border crossings from public and private sectors have been invited, together with a few selected regional and national consultants from the four regions, the International Road Transport Union, the Committee of the Organization for Cooperation of Railways, and the Islamic development Bank.
League of Arab States, Cairo, Egypt
