Remarks by Majallie Whbee, Director General, Ministry of Regional Cooperation to the World Summit on Sustainable Development

Regional Environmental Management Panel, August 27, 2002

Regionalism is a new concept in the Middle East, a concept that many would argue has yet to take hold in any serious manner. Years of conflict  prevented  meaningful regional dialogue in the past.  Regional capacity building is required before we can begin to talk seriously about regional environmental management.

While use of the regional management may be premature, some significant steps have been made over the past years in the direction of regional coordination and  cooperation.  Since the inception of the peace process, dozens of initiatives have been launched and many have been completed. Networking, joint research and regional forums have paved the way for data sharing, regulatory harmonization and other avenues of coordination and collaboration. As a result, sustainable development, may be just that more attainable.

The Multilateral Working Groups on Water and the Environment have played a major role in instigating many of these initiatives. The concept developed at the Madrid Summit that a multilateral track to peace on issues such as water and the environment can parallel bilateral negotiations was correct. In contrast to bilateral negotiations, which are adversarial in nature, cooperation for sustainable development is inherently synergetic.

The MERC program, established after completion of the Egyptian-Israeli peace agreement and later extended to Jordan, is another important program that has provided vital support and facilitation services for joint scientific research. Much of the research conducted under the MERC umbrella can be instrumental in cross-boundary planning and policy formation.

I would  like to  only a few of the past regional efforts that in my view carry the seeds for future regional environmental management. Although a select list, these programs cover a wide array of issues of sustainable development:

                     * RELEMER – a regional forum involving 10 Middle Eastern countries for cooperation in the field of seismology;

                     * An Israeli-Egyptian-Cypriot contingency plan for fighting marine pollution in the Mediterranean;

                     * The Egypt-Israel Marine Technology Program, a multi-project program dealing with oceanography, fishing and seafood safety.

                     * Euro-Mediterranean initiatives such as SMAP, UN MED-POL, MED-ATLAS, and the Mediterranean Forecasting System;

                     * Initiatives designed to better protect the Red Sea, including joint Jordanian-Israeli  research to map and monitor the coral reef in the Gulf of Aqaba; an Egyptian-Jordanian-Israeli oil spill contingency plan,  the International Coral Reef Initiative that involved Gulf states as well as Israel, Egypt and Jordan.

                    *  Anti-desertification programs, including a  trilateral Jordan-Israel-Palestinian study of the Jordan Rift Valley and a larger five-country initiative that included Egypt and Tunisia as well;

                     * Regional water programs, including a comparative study of laws and regulatory regimes in the region, a water data bank project, the Middle East Desalination Research Center,  and the Waternet regional information system;

                     * Joint Jordanian-Israeli geological studies in the Dead Sea Rift, including regional mapping for the purposes of land-use policy .

These are only a few examples. A more extensive list reveals even a greater spectrum of activity, including projects whose focus was integrated cross-boundary development.  While not meeting the criteria of  regional management found in other parts of the world, these projects set the stage for more intense and meaningful cooperation in the future. They play an important role in building the kind of regional capacity that can facilitate the generation of sustainable economic enterprises.