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Beirut, 17 April 2003 (United Nations Information Service)
--The twenty-second ministerial
session of the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia
(ESCWA) concluded today at the United Nations House in Beirut by
recommending three main agenda items: holding an
Arab-international forum on the economic and social rehabilitation
and reconstruction of Palestine; establishing a committee on women
at ESCWA; and establishing a United Nations Arab language centre
at ESCWA.
Other recommendations covered the effects of lack of stability in
the Arab region on social and economic development; the Agreement
on International Railways in the Arab Mashreq; cooperation between
ESCWA Member States concerning common water resources; ESCWA
initiatives on promoting technology and the information society in
the Arab region; improving the field of Statistics in Western
Asia; as well as enhancing ESCWA advisory services and technical
cooperation.
Concerning the occupied Palestinian territory, participants
recommended the necessity of holding an Arab-international forum
on the socio-economic rehabilitation and reconstruction of
Palestine as soon as possible as a step towards an independent
Palestinian state.
Participants also called on the Executive Secretary of ESCWA to
exert efforts to encourage and enrich Arab contribution to the
process of rehabilitation and reconstruction and link it with
concerned international programs. They stressed the importance of
the role of the Palestinian Authority and Palestinian civil
society institutions in developing the practical rehabilitation
and reconstruction plan of action.
Participants recommended the necessity of helping the ESCWA
Secretariat in delegating experts to evaluate the losses of the
economic and social sectors in the occupied Palestinian territory,
and help in finding a special process of compensating those
sectors through international organizations. They noted that
Palestinian institutions should fulfill their future role and
duties in contributing to the development process, and called on
the Executive Secretary to follow up the implementation of this
recommendation and submit a progress report to the twenty-third
ministerial session of ESCWA expected to be convened in April
2005.
In order to enhance the status of Arab women, participants
recommended the establishment of a committee on women at ESCWA,
the member of which would be experts from Member States. They
demanded holding the committee's founding meeting late this year,
and agreed to convene its regular meetings on biennial basis
starting next year.
Participants recommended founding a UN Arab language centre at
ESCWA, in cooperation with the UN headquarters, aiming at
ameliorating the technical and linguistic level of Arab
terminologies used in UN documents.
Following today's deliberations, Bahrain, represented by Sheikh
Mohammed bin Khalifah bin Ali Al Khalifah, Deputy Minister of
Transport, signed the Agreement on International Railways in the
Arab Mashreq in a ceremony held at the UN House, in the presence
of ESCWA Executive Secretary Mervat Tallawy, Bahrain Ambassador to
Syria and Lebanon Wahid Sayyar and Bradford Smith, Legal Officer
at the UN Office of Legal Affairs.
The Agreement was also signed by Jordan, the United Arab Emirates,
the Syrian Arab Republic, Palestine, Lebanon, Egypt and Yemen in a
joint ceremony held during the session's first day.
Speaking after the signing ceremony, Al Khalifah expressed the
importance of joining this agreement, saying that Bahrain was keen
on linking the Arab region through such a network, which would
positively affect Arab economies.
On her part, ESCWA Executive Secretary Mervat Tallawy said that
such an agreement was one of the means of achieving regional
integration. "It is an indicator that Arab states possess a
political will to cooperate despite all other differences," she
concluded.
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