Geneva, 1 December 2009 -- The United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD), in cooperation with the Egyptian Institute for Diplomatic Studies (IDS), will hold a 12-13 December workshop in Cairo for five Arab countries seeking to cooperate to spur the kind of economic progress that reduces poverty.
The workshop is part of an UNCTAD project on "Promoting sub-regional growth-oriented economic and trade policies towards achieving the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) in selected Arab countries". Egypt, Palestine, Jordan, Sudan, and Morocco are participating.
The project has been undertaken to promote development-driven trade strategies among Arab economies -- not only to expand trade but also to reduce unemployment and poverty. The formulation of such strategies is vital given ongoing trade liberalization efforts across the Arab region and efforts to achieve the MDGs.
The Cairo meeting will review and discuss economic and trade policies, trade indices, and the link between trade policy and regional integration among Arab countries that can lead to lower poverty, more job creation, and faster economic growth. The workshop will be attended by national and international experts, senior government representatives of participating countries, senior representatives of the League of Arab States (LAS), representatives from the Egyptian private sector, and economists and international trade experts.
The meeting and overall project target MDGs 1 and 8. Goal 1 aims at halving extreme poverty by 2015. Goal 8 calls for fostering a global partnership for development by promoting growth-oriented regional integration.
The workshop will be opened at 9:15 a.m. on 12 Dec. by Rachid Mohamed Rachid, Egyptian Minister of Trade and Industry. Also speaking will be Mohamed Rifaah El-Tahtawi, Director of the IDS; Heiner Flassbeck, Director of UNCTAD´s Division on Globalization and Development Strategies; and Mahmoud Elkhafif, Coordinator of UNCTAD´s Assistance to the Palestinian People Unit.
The workshop agenda also includes discussions and presentations on Egypt´s trade and economic policies; the state of play of the Doha round of trade negotiations; the Greater Arab Free Trade Area; the state of Arab economies in the multilateral global trading system; and the state of human development in Arab countries.
The two-day meeting will be held at the IDS, 1 Omar Makram Mosque Street, El Tahrir Square, Cairo, Egypt.
A previous workshop was convened in Beirut last July as part of the activities of the same project, and a third is planned for Morocco in the spring of 2010. The project is being carried out by UNCTAD´s Assistance to the Palestinian People Unit. It seeks to assist participating countries in achieving successful Arab regional integration, enhancing their trade policy-making capacities, fostering cooperation at the policy level, and strengthening statistical capacities to provide timely and reliable data for economic and trade policy decisions.
