WANA Forum calls for developing pro-poor, pro-equality policies
By Muhammad Ali Siddiqi
Wednesday, 19 May, 2010

One of the world's biggest assemblies of development economists and experts ended here on Tuesday with a call by Prince Hassan bin Talal to the delegates to move beyond rhetoric and develop policies and strategies that would be "pro-people and pro-equality".

Attended by 126 experts from the West Asia and North Africa (Wana) region and beyond, the three days of deliberations focussed on developing "policies and initiatives" that would set "the groundwork for collective action and in-depth research" in a region otherwise beset with war and conflict.

A brainchild of Hassan bin Talal, Wana Forum came into being in the Jordanian capital in April last with the aim of fostering regional cooperation for economic development and post-conflict reconstruction in the area stretching from and including Pakistan to Morocco, with intellectual input from non-governmental organisations from all over the world.

Pakistani or expatriates of Pakistani origin who read paper at the conference included Imran Riza, Representative of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees in Jordan, and Kazi Jalal, Special Programme Instructor of Environmental Studies from HarvardUniversity.

While last year's deliberations established three areas of "cross-cutting themes" - "reconstruction and recovery" of war-torn or conflict-affected areas, setting up "a regional cohesion fund for empowering citizenship and promoting "environmental education for sustainable development" - this conference grappled with the task of framing concrete policy proposals to pursue "supranational solutions" to regional problems, with focus on environment, education, human resources, community participation and the high unemployment rate in the WANA area.

The conference also saw the launch of the Arabic version of the Legal Empowerment of the Poor, because the Arab world has suffered a chronic level of unemployment of about 12 per cent. According to a study by Abdullatif al-Hamad, Director General Chairman of the Board of the Arab Fund for Economic and Social Development, the Arab world must create 70 million new jobs in the next two decades if it has to meet the challenge of joblessness in the future.

The region wasn't "short of conferences", said Hassan. "The real work is in between the annual forums, moving beyond rhetoric that focuses on what is wrong in the world to produce concrete results aimed at realising opportunities that will make a genuine difference in people's lives."

A non-governmental, non-partisan volunteer-driven society, the Wana Forum has been sponsored by the Nippon Foundation of Japan, whose chairman, Yohei Sasakawa, spoke on the opening day. Other international agencies cooperating with Wana Forum are the Arab Thought Forum, the International Union for the Conservation of Nature, the Regional Human Security Centre, the United Nations' Development Programme's Commission on Legal Empowerment of the Poor and India's Strategic Foresight Group.

Press Coverage WANA Forum 2010

Pursuing Supranational Solutions to the Challenges of Carrying Capacity 16-18 May 2010 Kempinski Hotel Amman, Jordan

Press Coverage
WANA Forum 2010

Pursuing Supranational Solutions to the Challenges of Carrying Capacity

16-18 May 2010
Kempinski Hotel
Amman, Jordan