11-11-04

The OPEC Fund for International Development signed a grant agreement with the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (UNESCWA) to pursue a project on dissemination of renewable energy services to rural areas in UNESCWA member countries. Under the agreement, the OPEC Fund is extending $ 100,000 to Beirut-based commission.
The project aims to integrate renewable energy resources into the life pattern of poor rural communities, thereby enhancing development opportunities and protecting the environment.

The ESCWA region, comprising Bahrain, Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Kuwait, Lebanon, Oman, Palestine, Qatar, Syria, UAE and Yemen, contains significant but unutilised renewable energy resources. The fund grant will co-finance awareness campaigns, to support local authority efforts in widening access to affordable energy services among rural communities.
This four-year project was initiated by ESCWA in 2002, in response to the World Summit on Sustainable Development's (WSSD) anti-poverty and sustainable development action plan. The agreement was signed at the fund's Vienna headquarters by Suleiman J. Al-Herbish, director-general of the OPEC Fund, and Dr Mervat Tallawy, undersecretary-General of UNESCWA.

The OPEC Fund also signed recently an agreement with the International Centre for Biosaline Agriculture (ICBA), extending a grant of $ 400,000 to co-finance capacity-building in arid and semi-arid regions through a project entitled strengthening human resources for forages grown with saline water.
Since ICBA's inception in 1996, with assistance from the OPEC Fund, the centre has been dedicated to fighting poverty issues in developing countries, particularly where agricultural expansion is limited by water shortages.

Source: Arab News