1. THE CIVIL SOCIETY AND DEMOCRATIZATION
PROGRAM
The Ibn Khaldun Center for Development Studies
(ICDS) is resuming its long-standing program of enhancing civil
society and democracy in the Arab World (CSDAW). Despite the three
years disruption (due to the closure of ICDS and jailing of its
chairman and 27 of his researchers and associates in a highly publicized
case) the dramatic events worldwide and in the region during those
same years, have made the issue of democracy more urgent than ever.
Long before the United States and other Western democracies discovered
its vital importance for the region following the trauma of September
11, ICDS had been involved in research, advocacy, and action, to
promote genuine democratic governance. In fact, it was exactly ICDSs
project on political education and election registration (PEER)
that brought about the fury of the Egyptian government against ICDS.
However, the acquittal ruling of Egypts highest Court of Cassation
(COC) on 18 March 2003 not only vindicated ICDS researchers/advocates,
but also asserted their right to pursue the agenda for which the
government had put them behind bars initially. The landmark ruling
of COC went out of its way to praise ICDSs commendable work, professionalism,
and the patriotism of its leading staff. While the initial accusation,
trials, and imprisonment of ICDS personnel, demoralized civil society
organizations (CSOs) in Egypt, as well as the Arab World, the COC
ruling revived their spirit and has given them new determination
to work for democratic governance in the Arab World. Different projects
under the CSDAW program were funded by separate donors in the past.
We trust they will continue to support us, and hope that new donors
will join to fund either the program at large or any specific project(s)
of their choice.
Below is a listing and brief description
of the projects we plan to launch:
- The Civil Society Newsletter (CSN)
Bilingual
This Arabic and English monthly publication
monitors, documents, and analyzes civil society institutes and
the democratization process in the Arab World and the Middle East
. We previously used to print 2000 copies in English and 3000
copies in Arabic, of the newsletter, which was mainly funded by
the National Endowment for Democracy (NED).
Click
here to read the Civil Society Newsletter...
- The Civil Society and Democracy Annual
Report
This is an analytical survey updating
the state of civil society and democratization processes in the
Arab world. Five such reports spanned a period from 1995 to 1999.
Its objective is to resume a series of highly acclaimed scholars
and practitioners in the Arab world and abroad. Its stock-taking
nature makes the series particularly useful to those interested
in time and cross-country comparisons in the Arab world and the
Middle East .
We believe that recent regional developments, especially in Iraq
, Palestine , and Sudan would add tremendous importance to the
analytical nature of this annual report. The Report was highly
appreciated in the past in many quarters that were interested
in democratizing the Arab world. The enlightening critical information
that this Report offered in the past we promise to continue in
all future editions.
Click
here to read the Annual Report 2003...
- The Ethnic and Minority Group Update
An update of this important and sensitive
report is in high demand, especially by members of ethnic and
minority groups living overseas. There is no other indigenously
generated reporting of a similar nature other than the reports
produced by ICDS between 1995 and 1999.
What will make this report extremely vital at this time is amplified
by the rapid unfolding of competing designs to rearrange the sociopolitical
maps of multiethnic and multireligious countries, including Iraq
, Sudan , and Algeria .
In the past, authors of this report had emphasized the value of
federalism as a modality for ending highly inflamed and protracted
civil strife in a number of Arab countries. While such policy
recommendation was initially met with resistance from governments
and other pan-Arab nationalist forces, there is now not only a
growing realization that federalism is a way out but that indeed
it should be at the top of the agenda of both a new Sudan and
a new Iraq.
- Political Parties in the Arab World
Long before democratization became an
urgent international demand for the Arab world, ICDS had professed
and propagated the dire need for it. As part of its advocacy,
ICDS began a critical examination of the state and political parties
in the Arab world, including countries whose legal political parties
were not allowed ( Egypt , Kuwait , Oman , and Qatar ).
In 1998, there was a grant from the Ford Foundation that enabled
ICDS to initiate a research project on political parties in the
Arab world. Three workshops were organized, the last of which
was in February 2000. The project was to be concluded in October
of that same year. On 30 June 2000 , however, the arrest of the
chairman of the Ibn Khaldun Center and of his 27 associates disrupted
this, as well as all other ICDS projects. It is thus now necessary
to update ten chapters that were already submitted and to write
two additional chapters to take into account recent events and
development relating to political parties in the Arab world.
- Conference on the Future of Emerging
Democracies in the Arab World
The Ibn Khaldoun Center and The Yemen
Institute for the Development of Democracy (YIDD) hope to organize
an International Conference entitled The Future of Emerging
Democracies in the Arab World . It is foreseen that this
will be done in cooperation with the Yemeni authorities, in late
November 2003. Participants will include governmental representatives
and Arab Civil Society Organizations. The Conference will be hosting
30 principal speakers from Morocco , Mauritania , Egypt , Palestine
, Jordan , Bahrain , Iraq , Qatar and Oman.
These countries are at varying points of early democratization.
By bringing advocates and practitioners from these countries together
much is hoped to be learned about the prospects for the future
expansion and consolidation of these democracies in transition.
There will also be a number of invitees from the new democracies
in Eastern Europe, Latin America, and Africa , whose societies
have gone through a recent transition from non-democratic to democratic
governments. The experience of these invitees, though relating
to different regions, will nevertheless enrich deliberations.
- Freedom In The World
The US-based Freedom House has been publishing
an annual report about the state of freedom in the world, which
was hardly known or cited in the Arab World until a few years
back. The reference and the citation from Freedom House began
by ICDS, in its monthly newsletter Civil Society , for
the first time six years ago. These references, however, were
confined to the information included in the report about the Arab
countries only. During the three years in which
ICDS was closed, hardly any mention of the Freedom House report
was made in the Arab media. There was a noted exception though
in the spring of the year 2002 when the United Nations Development
Program (UNDP) issued its first Arab Human Development Report
(AHDR) which cited the Freedom House publication to substantiate
the existence of one of the three major deficits in Arab countries,
vis. the freedom and democracy deficit. Since then, several public
figures both in the Arab World and abroad made frequent reference
to the Freedom House publication, including US President George
W. Bush, Secretary of State Colin Powell, UN Secretary General
Koffi Annan, not to mention tens of newspaper editorials.
The 2003 Freedom In The Arab World Report
is over 700 pages and is yet to be translated into the Arabic
language. A discussion with officials in Freedom House about such
translation took place in the Spring and Summer of 2003. Hence
one of the earliest initiatives of ICDS, on 30 June 2003 , was
to look into the possibility of carrying out the translation of
the report before the end of the current year. As things stand
now, a team of seven translators, a reviewer, and an editor of
the translated volume have been assembled and are prepared to
commence work once funding is available.
Conferences:
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