MENA NEWSLETTER

Some achievements have been witnessed in the region, but still a lot of challenges are facing the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) in regards to women’s rights and possibilities. Due to traditional gender roles, women are less represented in the labour market and in the social and public development domains as compared to men. In March the International Women’s Day is celebrated around the world, providing an opportunity to address the many difficulties still facing women today. ActionAid Denmark is working on enhancing the status of women in MENA and spent the day reflecting on how to take our drafted gender strategy to the implementation stage and how to translate it into the reality of the context we live in.

You can also read this in your web browser »

Appraisal coming to MENA

Five representatives from ActionAid International were brought together in March as an appraisal team to look into the MENA/Palestine programme. The objective was to assess the importance of covering the MENA region by the international ActionAid federation. The team visited Lebanon, Jordan and the Occupied Palestinian territories for the purpose.

Suad Nabhan, Regional Director, MENA

The MENA programme had arranged for them to meet with scholars from the region, visit partner organizations and meet with civically engaged young people to get a first hand impression about the programme and Youth engagement.

One of the meetings was held with more than 20 young people from Zarqa, who have participated in a joint project between ActionAid Denmark and the Community Development Committee (CDC). The young men and women presented their change projects to the 5 professionals from the appraisal team, and  answered questions about their activities. The youth presented themselves in a way that demonstrated the importance of civic engagement and underlined the impact of the project.

The appraisal team voiced some comments on the level of gender sensitivity the programme is managing and that it is a nascent programme on the right track. The team felt that despite of the fact that it is run by very few staff, it has succeeded in establishing good roots and linkages to strategic partners, and is capable of demonstrating effect on young people. 

In our next issue, we will be in a better position to update our partners and readers on the recommendations of the appraisal mission for  the MENA programme.

Jordanian Organizations Celebrating the International Women's Day

ActionAid Denmark participated in a celebration of the International Women’s Day on the 8th of March in Amman. At the one day gender conference they presented the idea of training gender ambassadors in civil society organizations in Jordan.

Heidi Jespersen, Programme assistant, Jordan

Part of the meeting was to discuss a report submitted by the ‘Arab Women’s Organization’ to the CEDAW committee (Convention on the Elimination of all forms of Discrimination Against Women). The report discusses the progresses and challenges in Jordan related to women’s rights and provides suggestions on how to promote positive change for women.

Jordan has signed the CEDAW in 1980 with reservations, and still fails to implement several articles in the bill of women’s rights. According to the report, one of the main challenges in Jordan are the reservations to especially article 9, which addresses the right of Jordanian women to pass their nationality on to their children. Other challenges, mentioned in the report, are women’s weak representative in the political sphere and the fact that perpetrators serve light punishment for violence against women.

The celebration gathered the ‘Arab Women’s Organization’, representatives from the Swedish ‘Kvinna Till Kvinna’ and the ‘Mosawa Network’ – a grass-root network of 86 women’s organizations in Jordan. Several of the organizations already work to change the laws discriminating women. But, the work with women’s rights is difficult due to traditional gender roles and political resistance to create real change.

ActionAid Denmark (AADK) has developed a specific gender strategy for their work with youth in the Middle East and North Africa and wishes to broaden the focus on women in their programme. The aim is to make an impact with the latest initiative, the so-called gender ambassadors. The idea is to promote a gender sensitive focus in the work of organizations, advocate on gender issues and establish gender related activities.

Two representatives from AADK presented the idea of gender ambassadors at the meeting with a very positive response. AADK appreciates the interest and the many contacts received through the gathering.

Read the Shadow Report to CEDAW

Youth Councils raise their voice at national Youth Summit

Innovative and critical teaching methods, the active creation of job opportunities for youth, and the institutionalization of youth councils in the local government structure. This was some of the isues that the 18 West Bank Youth Local Councils raised at a national Youth Summit in Palestine.   

Ane Sommer, Inspirator with Sharek, AADK partner organisation in oPt

The Youth Local Councils are elected by their fellow youth in the local communities. Working in close cooperation with the Municipalities, the Youth Local Councils provide young people with a unique local arena for voicing their needs, and influencing decision-making processes. The Youth Summit that was arranged by Sharek Youth Forum gave the Councils a space to present their work, express their needs and concerns and push for specific policy change from national decision-makers.

Determined youth
One by one, the young women and men, representing more than 250 council members present in the hall, raised their voice and expressed their desires for positive social change. Despite an impressive audience the youth acted determined and cool. In front of more than 200 journalists, diplomats and NGO representatives they directed their suggestions and questions at among others Prime Minister Dr. Salam Fayad and Minister of Local Government Dr. Khalid Qawasmi, demanding clear responses and action.

Nuba youth at their first national event
One of the councils is the newly elected Nuba Youth Council established in a partnership between Sharek Youth Forum and ActionAid Denmark in Nuba village north of Hebron city. The Youth Council was elected in December last year by 356 young General Assembly members and has just launched their first community initiatives and a local campaign. The Summit was their first opportunity to take their work to the national decision-making level.

Policy change on its way 
The Summit resulted in specific promises for change from the decision makers. Among other things the Minister of Local Government, Dr. Khalid Qawasmi, promised to work on both the institutionalization of the Youth Local Councils in the existing local government structure as well as on lowering the minimum age of candidacy for local council elections from 25 to 21. In the coming period of time the Youth Councils will work hard on holding the decision makers accountable, and push for the realization of these promises.

Voices from Bekaa

Finally the sunny spring has reached Lebanon’s mountains and the snow on the curvy road to the Beqaa valley has begun to melt. This made it possible for the ActionAid Lebanon team to arrange the long awaited campaign workshop in the beginning of March, with the valuable assistance of the Global Platform Trainer Sune Prahl Knudsen.

Zehra Aras, Programme Assistant, Beirut

Nine different youth partner organisations from Beqaa gathered in the Democratic women's Gathering center in Baalbek to achieve a sustainable agreement on a common issue for a joint campaign in the region. Many of the partners have a broad and profound experience with campaigning and in working with youth issues, which made the discussions and the sessions very fruitful. Many interesting ideas were exchanged and new thoughts and concepts were identified.

Among the many issues discussed for a future campaign, the Lebanese partners agreed on a possible cooperation on several themes; economic rights for youth, violence in schools and official school reform, early marriage, youth empowerment and enhancement of youth participation in the public life, the creation of student governments, and the Electoral Law in regards to achieving fair representation of woman, youth and other marginalized groups. 

ActionAid believes that joint campaigning will gather large groups of young people and support greater cooperation between organizations. The Lebanon team is seeking to gather the partners to a strategic meeting in Beirut in April to start the collaboration. The great expertise of the partners will hopefully make the campaign not only a great accomplishment but also a pioneering approach that supports the common good of the marginalized population of the Beqaa Valley.

Enlightening Danish Citizens

From February 25th to March 3rd, the Danish Folk High school “Grundtvigs Højskole”, visited Action Aid’s Global Platform in Amman, Jordan. The group consisted of 18 people: 10 students, 3 teachers, 2 journalists and 2 people from the Swedish integration project, “Fryshuset”.

Nathalie Cohn, Student at Grundtvigs Højskole

The students from “Grundtvigs Højskole” have been attending a class called “The Arab Spring” - where they among other things have been taught how to do campaigning. The campaign teaching has focused on how to engage and inform people in Denmark about the issues of the Arab region and on fundraising for the Global Platform in Amman.

The philosophies behind the concept of Danish Folk High Schools are ideas such as civic enlightenment and active citizenship, which is quite similar to the thoughts behind the Global Platform in Amman. This made the stay very relevant for the students who got a chance to see how these ideas are promoted in the Middle East.

During their visit at the Global Platform, the group experienced how ActionAid Denmark supports and trains youth from all over the Middle East by promoting civic disposition skills including self awareness, coorperation skills, critical thinking, leadership  and team building.

The group also visited the Palestinian Refugee Camp in Zarqa and conducted interviews in Amman.

After these experiences, the students used their new knowledge to improve their campaign. Among other things, they are preparing two festivals back in Denmark that will both focus on enlightenment and on dissolving stereotypes about the Arab World to the Danish citizens.

Homepage of Grundtvig Højskole

Training of Trainers in Jordan

On the 25th of February to the 15th of March, the Global Platform in Jordan conducted a Training of Trainers course (ToT) with a focus on creative methods.

Inge Sidenius Petersen, Global Platform Facilitator

The ToT was originally supposed to take place in Egypt targeting youth from North Africa. Due to the situation in Egypt, the seminar was transformed into a regional ToT taking place in Jordan, and was held for participants from Libya, Jordan, Lebanon, Italy and Denmark.

The course took place in the beautiful settings of the Theodor Schneller School, which provided facilities and served as course venue. The purpose of the course was to provide the participants with tools and skills to use as trainers of non-formal education and participatory, experience based learning.

The training included modules on social change, facilitation skills, educational planning, evaluation methods and finally a specific focus on the use of creative methods in training: graphic facilitation, forum theatre and storytelling.

Through the participatory approach the participants gained hands on experience with training methods. Especially through practical facilitation, preparing teambuilding activities, through the planning of workshops, and conducting workshops for each other during the seminar. Several participants expressed that they found especially graphic facilitation and forum theatre useful.

The ToT was finalized with a follow-up by the MENA programme where the participants could present how they are planning to use their new skills in their local communities.

The Libya participants are planning to arrange a training of youth groups and NGO leaders to pass on the skills they have learned. The Jordanians wish to lead youth empowerment projects at their universities, and the Lebanese participants will focus on combating secterianism through promoting civic disposition skills among youth - this include self awareness, self assertiveness, tolerance and acceptance of differences. 

Watch the ToT video here

Organizations debate the future of civil society

More than 40 representatives from various CSOs, NGOs, youth groups and activists across the MENA region met in a 3-days conference in Beirut to discuss possibilities and challenges for the future role of civil society after the Arab Spring.

Heidi Jespersen, Programme assistant, Jordan

The representatives agreed that one of the most important strategies for the future work on civil society was closer collaboration between CSOs, NGOs, social movements and groups across the region. The idea is to engage all groups, from youth and women to farmers, in creating sustainable change in the new space that has recently opened up.                         

The conference was entitled ‘Democratic Transition in the Arab Region – Shaping State – Civil Society Relationships’, and was organized by Oxfam in collaboration with the Egyptian Development Support Center, which is one of the AADK's partners in Egypt . ActionAid Denmark participated in the conference with representatives from the Jordan and Lebanon Programs in order to obtain insights into the future role of civil society in other MENA countries, and meet like-minded organizations, groups and activists.

The aims of the conference were to discuss the characteristics of the transitional period of Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt and Yemen, and how civil society can act to influence socio-economic policies in the region to ensure that these are promoting equity and social justice. Aditionally, it was discussed how civil society can collaborate nationally and regionally and set agendas for future work. 

The experiences from Georgia and Serbia were shared by Ekaterine Popkhadze from GYLA (Georgian Young Lawyers’ Association) and Dragan Popovic from Civic Initiatives. They underlined that the two countries still struggled in their transition phases 9 and 12 years after their revolutions. This gave valuable insights to the representatives from the Middle East and North Africa on the importance of civil society’s changing role in the recent developments in the region.

The conference raised important issues such as women’s roles and rights, the process of drafting a new participatory constitution, and how to respond pro-actively to the current attacks on civil society. In order to uphold and build upon the achivements gained, the representatives agreed that it is now time for civil society to work pro-actively.

Development in Egypt

ActionAid Denmark is welcoming Signe Plange as Capacity Development and Youth Advisor for the partner organization ‘Development Support Center’ (DSC) in Egypt. Signe believes that she has arrived to the country at a very interesting time, and is looking forward to follow future developments.

Signe points out that there are many challenges of working with an NGO in Egypt. Recent disagreements between organizations and the parliament make the working environment sensitive, but she also believes that she has arrived at an interesting time.

Previously, the CSO- and NGO work in Egypt was based on ‘charity’ work and service provision - now civil society has become aware of the importance of getting influence on a decision making level. Organizations in Egypt are now developing the tools to influence government policy as well as local decision makers. In this regard, Signe’s previous experience within advocacy and capacity building becomes a great asset to DSC.

DSC works with capacity building and consultancy for CSOs in Egypt, and provides trainings for a wide variety of CSOs working with a broad spectrum of issues from agriculture to democracy. Signe works with the Training and Field unit where she has worked the last few weeks on an advocacy manual for a pilot training. The training is part of a bigger project where DSC is trying to get a certified education on development up and running.

ActionAid Denmark is very happy to have Signe among the staff in the Middle East and North Africa region, and has great expectations for her work in Egypt.

Short updates from MENA

New Activista coordinator
The Activista project has got a new coordinator, Mohammad Al-Saud. Mohammad is planning for the implementation phase and is recruiting new Activista members. The project aims to support young activists to create their own campaigns and push for social change.

ILTS for working children
Trainers at the Global Platform are preparing a leadership-training for working children at the ‘Social Support Center for Working Children’. The training is meant to provide the youth with soft-skills such as tolerance, communication and cooperation.