Sustainable Development Goals … An Arab Regional Perspective

Building on the consultative process that the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UN-ESCWA) has been undertaking, the present document was prepared by ESCWA as an Arab regional contribution to the on-going inter-governmental efforts to formulate the SDGs. Specifically, the paper proposes a set of SDGs that work for the Arab region and reflect regional development imperatives. It is envisioned that this document will help Arab countries in their engagement in international negotiations that will shape the SDGs within 2014 -2015, to ensure that the perspective and priorities of the Arab region are adequately reflected. It comes out at a timely moment when the OWG is preparing to embark on negotiating the SDGs proposal.