ESCWA WEEKLY NEWS No. 46

Food security monitoring and analysis in Lebanon

In Beirut on 15 October, ESCWA, the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) and the Lebanon Country Office of the World Food Programme (WFP) organized a capacity-building workshop on food security monitoring and analysis in Lebanon.

The workshop brought together experts from the ministries of agriculture, health, energy and water, and economy and trade; United Nations organizations; and other stakeholders from the country’s agriculture sector.

Participants discussed the food security situation in Lebanon and the main challenges it faces. They also reviewed a food security monitoring framework, with related indicators and dashboards. They proposed recommendations to improve Lebanon’s agriculture strategy for 2021-2025 and the status of food security at the national and regional levels.

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Accelerating the achievement of gender equality through technology

In partnership with UN Women and the League of Arab States (LAS), and with support from the Danish Institute for Human Rights and the Danish Center for Research on Women and Gender (KVINFO), ESCWA held a capacity-building workshop for members of the Sub-Committee on Gender and the Sustainable Development Goals in Beirut, on 15 and 16 October, on accelerating the achievement of Sustainable Development Goal (SDG) 5 through information and communications technologies (ICTs).

Together with experts from national human rights institutes, representatives of national women’s machineries and national statistical offices of Arab States discussed the role of ICTs as a means of implementation for SDG 5 in particular, but also for all other SDGs. They highlighted the necessity to adopt a rights-based approach to ICT access and to development in general.

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Women in Saudi Arabia’s Vision 2030

As part of the support it extends to Arab States in their efforts towards achieving gender equality and full participation of women in the public life, ESCWA hosted a seminar organized by the Embassy of Saudi Arabia in Beirut, at the UN House, on “Women in Saudi Arabia's Vision 2030”.

The seminar, held at ESCWA on 14 October, addressed the various developments in Saudi Arabia in the economic, social and cultural spheres, which have already had a positive impact on the situation of Saudi women. 

The keynote speaker and member of the Human Rights Commission of Saudi Arabia and of its Family Affairs Council, Amal Yahya Al Mouallimi, presented on the realization programmes and objectives of the Vision that are related to women. She saw that developments in Saudi Arabia would reflect positively on the region. 

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6th Arab Round Table on Sustainable Consumption and Production in Cairo

In Cairo, ESCWA and its partners, UN Environment’s Regional Office for West Asia, the League of Arab States and the Centre for Environment and Development for the Arab Region and Europe (CEDARE) co-organized the 6th Arab Round Table on Sustainable Consumption and Production (SCP), on 9 and 10 October.

On the theme “From action plans to implementation”, the 6th Arab Round Table was an avenue for Arab countries, international and regional agencies, the private sector and non-governmental organizations to share lessons learned and discuss progress on SCP.

ESCWA moderated a session on the role of green technologies in advancing SCP, during which its activities and successful promising youth-led green technology initiatives from the Arab region were presented, particularly regarding food waste and conflict waste reuse.

Did you know...

… that, while substantial progress has been made in increasing access to clean drinking water and sanitation, billions of people—mostly in rural areas—still lack these basic services? Two out of five people worldwide do not have a basic hand-washing facility with soap and water, and 9% of the global population still practiced open defecation in 2017.

In the Arab region, which has the highest level of freshwater scarcity in the world, 74 million people are without access to basic sanitation and 51 million without drinking water services. The situation is expected to deteriorate further due to climate change.

^{Photo credit: Sufian Abdulmouty, Syria}

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