Amman Hosts Seventh Meeting of ESCWA Technical Committee

The Jordanian capital Amman hosted the Seventh Meeting of the ESCWA Technical Committee on 18 and 19 March 2013, in the ESCWA Technology Center in the Royal Scientific Society. During the opening of the meeting, United Nations Under-Secretary-General and ESCWA Executive Secretary Rima Khalaf said that in the coming period, ESCWA will expand its activities that support the resolutions of the Third Arab Economic, Social and Development Summit held in Riyadh last January, which are concerned with Arab regional integration. The Commission will form a vigorous and specialized working group to support the efforts of member countries and the League of Arab States in this area. Khalaf welcomed the representatives of Tunisia, Libya, and Morocco, all first-time participants in the Committee meetings after their countries recently joined ESCWA. The Seventh meeting of the Technical Committee discussed a host of issues of interest to the Arab region, and specifically ESCWA member countries, such as regional and international developments like the progress achieved in the preparation of the United Nations development agenda beyond 2015, and the follow-up to the outcomes of the United Nations Conference on Sustainable Development (Rio+20). The meeting also discussed the proposed ESCWA programme of work for the biennium 2014-2015, the good practices in technical cooperation activities and regional advisory services that ESCWA provides through its capacity-building of member countries, as well as ESCWA's Terms of Reference and Rules of Procedure. The meeting also tackled the progress achieved in the work of the secretariat such as the implementation of resolutions adopted by ESCWA at its Twenty-Seventh session, the implementation of recommendations made by the Technical Committee at its Sixth meeting, and implementation of recommendations made in the evaluation of the intergovernmental mechanism of ESCWA and its subsidiary bodies. The Technical Committee advises and assists the secretariat in the implementation of the programme of work and priorities, consistent with the mandates and guidance of ESCWA's Ministerial Session. It also guides the secretariat on the best ways to implement the resolutions of its Ministerial Sessions. The United Arab Emirates, in its capacity as chair of ESCWA's Twenty-Seventh session is currently chairing the Technical Committee. The membership of the Technical Committee comprises high-level senior officials of ESCWA member countries.