Interregional Cooperation among the Regional Commissions Joint Transport and Transport Facilitation Project Undertaken by the Five Commissions The ongoing processes of globalization and liberalization of national economies have greatly enhanced the scope for intra-regional and interregional trade and tourism, simultaneously creating significant demands for efficient and well-integrated transport infrastructure and services to enable countries to take part in the development processes effectively. Many developing countries need technical assistance and financial resources to enhance their capacities in the field of transport and transport facilitation. To address the question of capacity building in those countries, the Directors for transport programmes in the regional commissions held their second meeting, hosted by ESCWA in Beirut from 23-24 January 2001. The Beirut meeting finalized a “project document” for mobilizing support. The project, entitled “Capacity-building through cooperation, in developing interregional land, and land-cum-sea transport linkages,” involves a total of $1.25 million dollars, to be funded from the UN Development Account and to be implemented over a duration of five years (2002-2006). All five UN regional commissions will be jointly responsible for the management and implementation of the project. This joint Mediterranean initiative comprises three thematic proposals, namely, in the area of ground water and environment, alternative funding mechanisms for renewable energy and energy conservation projects, and trade facilitation, and electronic business with a focus on Small-Medium sized Enterprises. These broad areas are included in ECE, ECA, and ESCWA’s respective work programmes. Also, a number of Mediterranean countries are facing common environmental problems and development constraints related to water scarcity and resource degradation, and many are becoming increasingly dependent on internationally shared water resources, in particular ground waters. Substantial experience exists in monitoring, assessment and management of ground waters at regional level, especially within ECE. Based on this and other experiences, a joint ECA-ECE-ESCWA project proposal is being formulated aiming at developing tools and mechanisms for sustainable utilisation, management and protection of internationally shared ground water resources in the Mediterranean region, with ESCWA as lead organisation. |
