State committee (Arab Union)

A state committee (Arabic: لجنة الدولة lajnat ad-dawlah; pl. لجنات الدولة lajnāt ad-dawlah) is a type of executive body serving the Government of the Arab Union.

Like ministries (standard executive departments), state committees are directly subordinate to the Council of Ministers, the top executive body of the Government of the Arab Union which serves as the cabinet of the Prime Minister; each chairperson in charge of a particular state committee is thus a sitting member of the Council of Ministers, identical in practice to a minister in charge of a particular ministry.

Unlike ministries, however, which are assigned administration of a well-defined responsibility of state administration or economy which practically never overlap, state committees are instead defined by a specific mission or goal, which despite often involving a significant degree of independent activity can often overlap with the jurisdictional areas of responsibility of one or more ministries.

State committees are exclusively federal in nature, with republican executive governments only overseeing ministries. However, many state committees, despite answering to the federal government, have subordinate subcommittees in each republic responsible for carrying out the committee's responsibilities in that particular republic, which usually report to the respective republican government in addition to the committee chairperson who is part of the federal cabinet (the Council of Ministers).