The Syrian Arab Republic, represented by:
- Eng. Jihad Kanaan / The Secretary and A Member of the National Commission for the International Hydrological Program / The Ministry of Water Resources.
- Dr. Nidal Hassan / The Secretary General of the National Commission for UNESCO.
Participated in the regional virtual meeting for launching the United Nations Report about Water Resources Development in the Arab region in 2020.
The meeting was organized by the UNESCO Regional Bureau for Science in the Arab Countries – Cairo, on June 17th, 2020; in coordination with UNESCO's Regional field Bureaus in the Arab region (Beirut, Baghdad, Doha, Khartoum, Rabat and Ramallah), and with collaboration with the United Nations Economic Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), and with participation of Arab experts in the field of climate change, partners from UNESCO, ESCWA, and academic community concerned, as well as members of UNESCO water family in the region, UNESCO national commissions and the International Hydrological Program in the Arab region.
The meeting included a presentation about the main pivots of the United Nations report about the development of water resources for the year 2020 and the results and recommendations of the global policy for this report. As ESCWA presented a presentation about the main challenges and activities of climate change facing the Arab region as defined by the regional initiative of the United Nations and the League of Arab States to assess the impact of climate-changing on water resources and socio-economic vulnerability in the Arab region. In addition, UNICEF provided comments on this, which was followed by an open discussion among the participants.
It is worthy mentioned that the United Nations World Water Resources Development Report is a reliable review of fresh-water resources in the world focusing on one of the various strategic water issues in each year, in order to present best practices from all over the world, accompanied by in-depth analyzes to provide policy-makers and decision-makers with the necessary tools to facilitate the making of luminous decision for the sustainable management of our water.
Moreover, the series of publications of the report forms a mechanism for reporting changes in the use / management of water resources and progress towards achieving international goals, especially those mentioned in the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development.
UNESCO, in coordination with the UNESCO World Water Assessment Program, will publish this report, which reflects a joint effort by more than 70 UN agencies that make up the UN water system.