United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia
United Nations Commission for economic cooperation among its member states
The United Nations Economic and Social Commission for West Asia (ESCWA; Arabic: الإسكوا) is one of five regional commissions under the jurisdiction of the United Nations Economic and Social Council. The role of the Commission is to promote economic and social development of Western Asia through regional and subregional cooperation and integration.
The Commission is composed of 21 member states, all from the region of North Africa and the Middle East.
The Commission works closely with the divisions of the Headquarters in New York and United Nations specialized agencies, as well as with international and regional organizations. The League of Arab States, the Gulf Cooperation Council and the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation are among its regional partners.
History
The Commission was first established by the United Nations Economic and Social Council on 9 August 1973 as the United Nations Economic Commission for Western Asia (ECWA). The Commission was the successor to the United Nations Economic and Social Office in Beirut (UNESOB), which was absorbed into the framework of ECWA. Its main mandate was to "initiate and participate in measures for facilitating concerted action for the economic reconstruction and development of Western Asia."
On 26 July 1985, in recognition of the social component of its work, the Commission was renamed to the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) by the Economic and Social Council.
Member states
The following are all member states of the Commission:
Locations
The Commission's headquarters have been located in the Central District of Beirut, Lebanon, since 1997. Prior to this, the headquarters moved between multiple cites. The first headquarters of the Commission were located in Beirut from 1974 to 1982.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia” as united Nations Commission for economic cooperation among its member states. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
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Vocabulary and entity names are the principal evidence signals here, because they determine the precision of every later search. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 21, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q1355485. VIAF identifies the subject as 122576751. The Library of Congress control number is n77003157. 1 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 1 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1973, 1985, 1997 and 1974.
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This entry incorporates text from “United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.