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Recommendations and Closing of the Second Arab Reform Conference

Alexandria, 16 March 2005—Tuesday, 15 March 2005 witnessed the closing of the Second Arab Reform Conference on Successful Models of Civil Society Organizations, organized by the Arab Reform Forum at the Bibliotheca Alexandrina (BA). During the session, Dr. Ismail Serageldin, Director of the Bibliotheca Alexandrina, honored the memory of Dr. Adel Abou Zahra, who was a man dedicated to supporting women’s empowerment and environmental issues.

Dr. Serageldin then distributed the prizes of the competition that BA had organized in Adel Abou Zahra’s name. The Prize winner of the Freedom of Expression and Dialogue theme was the Egyptian Association of Friends of BA, while the Friends of the Environment Association of Alexandria won the Adel Abou Zahra Prize of Environment. In the field of Artistic Creativity, the Choir of the Upper Egyptian Organization for Education and Development won the Prize, and finally the Women Empowerment Prize went to the Center for Women’s Issues in Upper Egypt.

The conference consisted of 12 panels discussing issues related to civil society organizations (CSOs). The 12 panels were: youth employment; women’s empowerment; education; environment and water; social integration; human rights; sustainable development; health issues; peace; political participation; culture and arts; as well as programs on housing and small loans. A paper was produced for each of the panels with the panel members’ recommendations.

The recommendations of these panels were then presented in the Closing Session by the different panel heads. These recommendations aim to follow up on the implementation of the projects that have been initiated, as well as focus on studying the successful models through open discussions in order to benefit from their experience.

The panels’ recommendations included:

Youth employment panel
It was agreed that youth unemployment is one of the main challenges faced by the Arab world, affecting development, economic progress and political stability. Presented solutions to unemployment included investment and even distribution of the labor force; cooperation between government, CSOs and the private sector; women empowerment; encouraging self employment and enhancing skills; developing education and relating it to the labor market’s needs; as well as encouraging innovation, creativity, research and development.

Women’s empowerment panel
The recommendations regarding the empowerment of women focused on empowerment from the cultural, intellectual, economical, social and political standpoints. In addition, it stressed the need to promote both women’s rights and their contribution to society.

Education panel
The challenge of education in Egypt lies in the mechanism of education, its management, programs and agendas. It is also affected by the social and economic states of the country.

The paper presented policies and recommendations to improve education, including the need for improvement of human resources, the establishment of centers of excellence, enhancement of students’ skills, and the sponsor of research and development. In addition, to the importance of illiteracy elimination and the education of adults.

Environment and water panel
The recommendations include widening cooperation in protecting the environment, developing national agendas for the use of water, and special programs for conserving and preserving water resources from contamination, as well as controlling its use.

Social integration panel
Social integration is necessary to combat both unemployment and poverty. The four main contributors that should have an active role in this are the nation, the private sector, the civil society and the society as a whole. The recommendations included transparency in funding, replacing external CSO monitoring with internal monitoring from within the CSOs themselves, as well the development of laws and their implementation, and enhancing the concept of volunteer work.

Human rights panel
The importance of supporting and protecting human rights was emphasized.

Sustainable development panel
The panel members stated the need to build strategies promoting scientific research and relating them to development. As well as the need for participation of the government, CSOs and private sector in the development process.

Healthcare provision panel
A set of procedural policies were proposed necessary for healthcare reform. These include the right for provision of medical care to citizens according to their health status and not according to their financial ability; in addition to better financing of healthcare services with increased participation of the public and private sector in funding, and strengthening prevention against disease and epidemics.

Peace panel
Supporting the development of women’s capabilities; and the participation of civil society, scientific institutions and the media in disseminating the culture of peace and tolerance were within the recommendations. In addition, the need to avoid associating terrorism with a specific nation or theology was pointed out.

Political participation panel
The recommendations included the need to encourage university students and citizens to participate in political reform; the move toward decentralization and democracy to reach the level of political participation required on the national and regional levels; and the need to promote political awareness and participation.

Culture and Arts panel
Among the recommendations of the conference in the field of culture and arts, are developing artistic and scientific creativity; enhancing the award and grant programs in order to encourage creativity; as well as steering the Arab satellite channels to be more informative and raise cultural awareness.

Panel on Programs on housing and small loans
Flexibility in the legal terms, conditions and routine procedure of loan provision of small projects is required; in addition to aiding the small projects with services such as marketing training, etc.

The participants		The panel heads