2012

Youth participation in the Arab Region and the means of participating from non-traditional to Revolutions

In collaboration with the Center for Arab Unity Studies during the period from June 2011 to May 2012 the Forum conduct a study on the political participation of Arab youth and the different patterns created by these young people, which is not limited to self-expression or opinion, but turned into revolutions in some cases.

In this context, the study covers five Arab countries “from Morocco and the Levant and the Gulf,” : Morocco, Tunisia, Egypt, Syria and Bahrain. Each chapter deals with a case study one of these countries with a focus on the most common patterns in it. The final chapter concludes the study based on analysis of previous cases and comparison between the similarities and differences of different case studies and its effects on a new Arab nationalist speech, and how it will be reflected on the ground to develop new regional map.

Foreign Funding in the Arab World: Myth and Reality of a Political Tool

The issue of ‘foreign funding’ to local civil and political society, and the political agendas often associated with it, have long been a highly sensitive issue in the Arab region. The ‘Arab Spring’ provides a new window of opportunity to address the topic of foreign funding and how it may affect civil society activism.

In partnership between Hivos www.hivos.nl / FRIDE www.fride.org

A study in 2012 will be conducted to address dilemmas regarding foreign funding, and provide recommendations on how both domestic and international actors may be able to overcome them. The main objectives of the project are to:

Analyses perceptions on foreign funding in its main variations in Arab societies, and the political implication of these perceptions;
Contrast these perceptions with an estimate of the actual flows of funding, subject to data availability;
Assess the way in which external funding, and the negative perception thereof, are being used as a political tool by both domestic and international actors to advance their political interests;
Provide policy recommendations to decision makers in this field.

Writing policy recommendations papers for Egyptian parliamentarians (in partnership with Westminster foundation)

The aim of this project is to write policy recommendation papers addressed to Egyptian parliamentarians, focusing on the main political, social and economic issues that need legislations. The project consists of 4 main phases: in the first phase, the topics are chosen, in a second phase, a group of experts write policy recommendation papers on each of these topics, in a third phase, the papers are discussed in workshops with experts, researchers, parliamentarians who interested in the topic, and in the last phase, the experts submit the final version of the papers after the discussion, and all papers are then sent to all the members of parliament.

Constitutional issues( in partnership with the Arab Reform Initiative)

This project aims at writing policy recommendations papers addressed to the members of the constitutional committee, focusing on the main debated constitutional issues. For each constitutional issue, a political researcher, a legal researcher, and foreign researcher are asked to write each of them a political analysis paper on each constitutional issue. Each constitutional issue is analyzed from a legal and political perspective, beside the international experience. After the papers are discussed, the political researcher writes a policy recommendation paper that take into account the political, the legal, the international experience into account. All papers are then sent to the members of the constitutional committee

In cooperation with Global Partners Association to promote Transparency in Egypt focusing on specific sectors of the Egyptian institutes aiming at:

Composing a governmental taskforce from Civil Society, Academics and politicians
Capacity building outputs: 4 background papers, educational workshop, drawing the headlines of the action plan
Making a work plan agreed upon by the taskforce to promote transparency.

Policy Training Project:

in cooperation with West Minister Association, the project is to train a group of researchers, academics, activists and Civil Society organizations from Egypt and Tunisia on how to write Policy Training papers.
a two-day training took place at Swiss-inn Hotel… the Project is still under development.

Roundtable Discussions:

in cooperation with European Partnership for Democracy, the project included a study tour about the transitional phase in both Poland and Hungary for a group of young researchers from different political orientations to transfer lessons learned from these experiences into the Egyptian context. That will take place via Policy recommendation papers and promote them in the form of workshops.

Welfare State Project (2011-2012)

The Welfare state project is conducted in cooperation with the Danish Egyptian Dialogue Institute (DEDI). As the concept of “social Justice” is an important value referred to by most political and social actors in the context of the Egyptian revolution, this project aims to transfer the various aspects of welfare state, based on the concept of “social justice”, as it is adopted in two different models of European welfare states: Denmark and Germany, to the Egyptian community. The project will put the mechanisms of these experiences in the Egyptian context to be presented to the Egyptian stakeholders, such as the political parties, the governmental actors, and civil society organizations.

Political party support and parliamentary development in Egypt (2011-2012)

Following the elections, the Egyptian parliament faces a wide variety of challenges. It will be populated by many new politicians with limited parliamentary experience, and those who operated under a different political culture. Its procedures and rules will need to be revised; the committee system will need to be reformed. The staff in the parliament, though experienced, will need to adapt to the needs of a variety of politicians and parties. At the same time, the institution will face high public expectations in addressing a wide range of problems. And it will be expected to address these issues quickly.

This project, conducted in partnership with Global Partners and Associates (GPA), seeks to address many of these issues. It aims to work with the political parties during the months leading up to the elections, and in the months afterwards by working with political parties, MPs, and staff. The project will thus attempt to create a common agenda amongst the political parties on how the parliament should operate and facilitate the transition process.

Towards establishing a think tank to support the Iraqi Parliament (2009-2012)

The general objective of the project is to enhance the capacities of the Iraqi Council of Representatives and its specialized committees in the fields of: education, public health, gender, transparency and accountability.
This objective can be met through the establishment of a think tank specialized in parliamentary affairs, providing consultancy, lobbying and providing the parliament with the necessary studies and policy recommendations in the fields mentioned, through university professors specialized in Parliamentary Affairs and public policies.

This project is conducted by the Arab Forum for Alternatives, in cooperation with Westminster Foundation for Democracy (WFD), and the Iraqi House of Expertise (IHE).

The study project is about the Arab spring in different concepts, the study will deal with the Arab spring from the following six Axes:

Arab spring and social movements(saleh eldin elkorashy ).

Arab spring and the regional aspect (Azmi bishara).

Arab spring and islamic movements (Amr elshobaky).

Arab spring and socio-economic rights (Wael gamal ).

Arab spring and minorities (Ghassan abass).

A conference about this study will be held on July ,and in next step their will be output recommendations to be provided to the European and Arab decision makers about how to deal with the Arab spring through these six axis es .

The organizer :

Hivos:

Hivos is a dutch non-governmental organization guided by humanist values.The work of Havios aims at structurally alleviating poverty,with an emphasis on civil society building and on sustainable economic development