October 2003: At its eleventh session, the Commission on Sustainable Development (CSD) invited the United Nations Regional Commissions to consider organizing regional implementation meetings to contribute to the work of the CSD. In response to this invitation, the UN Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA) organized a Regional Implementation Meeting from 19-21 October 2003, at the League of Arab States (LAS) headquarters in Cairo, Egypt. This meetings aimed to provide input on CSD-12’s thematic focus, namely water, sanitation and human settlements.
This meeting was held within the ambit of the Joint Committee on Environment and Development in the Arab Region (JCEDAR), a committee composed of representatives from ESCWA, the Technical Secretariat of the Council of Arab Ministers Responsible for the Environment (CAMRE), the UN Department for Economic and Social Affairs (DESA), and the United Nations Environment Programme’s Regional Office for Western Asia (UNEP/ROWA). Fifty participants from 14 governments, joined by representatives from intergovernmental and academic organizations, industry and NGOs, attended the meeting.
Participants adopted 10 decisions on, inter alia: follow-up measures to the World Summit on Sustainable Development (WSSD) outcomes and the Arab Initiative for Sustainable Development; follow-up activities to the Abu Dhabi Declaration on the future of the Arab Environment Programme; a work programme for the environment up to 2005; priorities and achievements in the field of sustainable development; incentives to the private sector to invest in environmental projects; and the establishment of an Arab environment fund. [Earth Negotiations Bulletin coverage: http://enb.iisd.org/csd/rim/escwa/]