The third meeting of the Arab Working Group on sustainable development indicators chaired jointly by LAS, CEDARE, UNEP and UN-ESCWA was held in Amman from 13-15 March and gathered 40 participants from different Arab countries, focal points from statistics institutes and Ministry of Environment and representatives from The Environment Agency Austria.

The meeting aimed to take stock of achievements, gaps and challenges in the implementation of Environment and sustainable Development Indicators in the Arab region.  In particular, the working group discussed the selection of a smaller set of environment and sustainable development indicators for the implementation of the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, as well as means to ensure the continuity and sustainability of the Arab working group.

The working group agreed on the following recommendations:

a) adopting a smaller set of priority indicators for the environment, social and economic themes for the implementation of the new 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development

b) the necessity to build national capacities in environment and sustainable development in Arab countries in data production and sharing

c) request Arab countries to appoint an expert from each statistical office and Ministry of Environment to serve as focal points for the working group and aim to stabilize the network to guaranty sustainability of the work of indicators working group

d) request countries to reply within the next two months to the questionnaire prepared by CEDARE for assessing the status of the infrastructure of the priority environment and sustainable development indicators. 

  Summary report  Agenda