with the participation of the Ministers of Labor and Social Affairs
Beirut, Lebanon, 25-28 February 2019
What: A meeting on social protection reform in the Arab region organized by the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) and focusing on social insurance, health care, social assistance, integrated registries, information systems and institutional arrangements.
When: Monday 25 February at 13:30hrs, Tuesday 26 to Thursday 28 at 9:00hrs.
Where: ESCWA Headquarters, Riad el-Solh Square, Beirut, Lebanon
Who:
- Ms. Rola Dashti, UN Under-Secretary-General and Executive Secretary of ESCWA;
- Mr. Camille Abou Sleiman, Lebanese Minister of Labour;
- Mr. Richard Kouyoumjian, Lebanese Minister of Social Affairs;
- Keynote statement by Mr. Adib Nehmeh, consultant in development affairs.
Participants include senior experts from relevant ministries in Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Mauritania, Morocco, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Tunisia, United Arab Emirates, as well as experts from UN entities and regional and international organizations.
Why: The key objective of the event is to enhance the capacities of ESCWA member States to expand, complete and harmonize their social protection systems and to encourage a “system’s perspective” on social protection reform that enables governments to better integrate the different parts of social insurance, assistance, health care, including through the establishment of integrated management information systems.
Participants will engage in discussions and analysis of the ongoing social protection reforms, learn lessons and experiences from the other Arab countries and, when appropriate, the experiences of other regions where similar reforms have already been brought about.
Information discussed during the event will also feed into the ESCWA report “Social Protection Reform in the Arab Region” to be published later in 2019.
The ESCWA Communication and Information Unit (ECIU) kindly asks media representatives wishing to cover this meeting to confirm their attendance at +96170008879.
For more information:
-Nabil Abu-Dargham, Head, ECIU, +961-70-993-144; email: dargham@un.org
-Ms Rania Harb, Public Information Assistant, +961-70-008-879; email: harb1@un.org
