2017

1) Project “Alternative Economy” (2017) in cooperation with the Rosa Luxemburg Foundation – North Africa office

The aim of the project is to strengthen the network in the region for workers in the field of social justice by presenting a vision for building an alternative economy and how it relates to achieve justice, especially with regard to property, management, structures, and labor relations, and secondly with issues related to the alternative economy, such as focusing on issues such as women’s empowerment, environmental issues. The third is the determinants of building an alternative economy in terms of focusing on three main determinants: sovereignty, democracy, and the role of international institutions, and fourthly, sectors as an aspect of building an alternative economy, as three main sectors were covered: industry, agriculture, and public services, and fifth was public policy and their relationship to building an alternative economy, especially Housing, health, and education.

The project came out with the following outcomes:

– Publications: One of them is the Alternative Economy Series, which is 14 brochures that provide a view on the alternative economy. And the “Social justice in Arabic” platform.

2) Project ” Consolidating citizenship through municipalities in the Arab region(2017)” in cooperation with the Swedish Institute in Alexandria

Based on the belief that citizenship was one of the most prominent demands of the Arab Spring, and it appeared prominently in the post-revolution movements and constitutional and legal amendments, especially with regard to marginalized categories of society, and based on the fact that empowering municipalities and ensuring fair representation for all is one of the important aspects in achieving citizenship, the aim of this project to enhance the concept and values ​​of citizenship through the local participation of youth and women.

This has been done by identifying and evaluating the participation of women and youth at the local level in different contexts across the Arab region, and by identifying and analyzing the role played by the various groups and initiatives that have emerged in the Arab region that deal with citizenship at its different levels, as well as through building the capacities of potential members of municipalities at the level of knowledge and skills, in addition to expanding the network among all entities, initiatives and groups that work to build municipalities to achieve and consolidate citizenship.

The project worked through writing background papers, meeting researchers, developing the training manual, holding a regional training workshop with the aim of deepening the participants’ knowledge and skills on enhancing the participation of women and youth through municipalities, understanding citizenship, and consolidating their values ​​through municipalities. The project came out with the following outputs:

– Acquiring and producing knowledge, through the background studies conducted, researchers have been able to identify and evaluate the participation of women and youth at the local level in different contexts across the Arab region. The conference came out with a book titled “Consolidating Citizenship Through Municipalities in the Arab Region”. An online training manual has also been issued.

– Building capacities that can work to achieve the main goal of empowering municipalities and consolidating citizenship in the Arab region, which was achieved through holding a regional training workshop.

3) Project “Media and Democratic Transition: Professionalism and Institutionalization” (2017) in cooperation with the Swedish Institute in Alexandria

Based on the problems faced by media institutions in the Arab world, whether governmental or private, and which are related to multiple aspects, such as the organizational structure, ownership patterns and the legislation under which they operate, the project aimed to address a number of media-related issues in order to present a vision for media reform in the region on the level of professionalism and institutionalization, for example the changing political economy of the media, digitization, technological aspects, etc..

To achieve this, the project worked through several levels, first meeting with experts in order to present their vision to address the topic, then writing papers that branched out under different headings and flowed into the same main address. After that, an international conference was held to present and discuss the papers, followed by writing political recommendation papers.

The project has come out with several outputs:

– A book entitled “Media Reform in the Arab Region: Professionalism and Institutionalization”, which contains conference papers.

– Work to reduce the gap between decision-makers and media workers, as well as address issues related to the profession of journalism itself.

– Issuing four political recommendation papers.

– Achieving communication between media professionals and experts from different countries in the region, and the network began in its first phase with experts from Lebanon, Egypt, Tunisia, Morocco, and Algeria, and then expanded the network with new journalists and experts, especially young journalists who were the main target group at the conference.

The project experts issued recommendations to many of the young journalists who participated in the conference, and their participation helped to crystallize the main challenges facing media professionals in the region, which in turn helped formulate political recommendations. On the one hand, it helped build capacity by engaging young journalists in discourses related to the future of their profession. This network created insights about different experiences and opened more spaces for cooperation and media development in the Arab region.

 4) Project “Social justice and crisis response in Egypt (2017)” in cooperation with the Friedrich Ebert Foundation – Cairo office

The aim of the project is to explore the contradiction between achieving social justice and the war on terror, by studying and understanding the impact of the war on terror on achieving social justice in Egypt on several levels. In addition to defining the role of internal and external actors in this regard. The project also aims to provide recommendations to stakeholders on policies that can protect and advance social justice in the face of the challenge of terrorism.

To achieve the objectives of the project first, holding a kickoff meeting that presented the vision and goal of the project, defining the methodology and the detailed topics of the papers, then the process of writing the papers that were presented and discussed in a workshop. After that, three study papers were written. The first examined the impact of the war on terror from a macroeconomic perspective, focusing, for example, on studying government spending and how they were affected by terrorism and anti-corruption measures. The second paper focused on addressing the impact of the war on terror from a microeconomic perspective, as well as on the impact of the economic crisis on different social strata and how they were affected more by the issue of combating terrorism. The third papers dealt with the war on terror, its impact on public policies and its implications for social justice, with a focus on the impact of the war on terror on policymaking and how this affects the status of social justice in the short and long term. Then, study papers and policy papers were presented in a workshop that was followed by writing of policy recommendation papers. The project came out with a book on “Social Justice and the crisis in Egypt”.