Philanthropy in the Arab region at the dawn of
a new era
May 2012
Dr. Elie
Abouaoun
Executive
Director – Arab Human Rights Fund (AHRF)
The Arab
region has experienced a number of historical developments in the last year, a
dynamic of change unseen since the 1950s.
Analyzing the whereabouts of this dynamic might be pretentious for a grantmaking
organization like AHRF; nevertheless, reflecting on how this reshuffling of the
cards would affect philanthropy in the region is a much needed exercise at this
stage. Cautious as we are, adopting a blanket approach during this reflection is
undoubtedly counterproductive. Instead, a set of the largely shared elements that
exist at the regional level have to be explored.
While it
looks obvious that the recent popular awakenings will open windows of
opportunities for the philanthropic sector, the accrued weaknesses of the civil
society—including human rights groups—over the last six decades will not be
easy to overcome. The devolution of government services, performance, and
accountability in many Arab countries led to an increased role for nonprofits
in filling the gaps left by the underperforming governments, paralyzed or
ineffective parliaments (when they existed at all), and the bureaucratic/corrupt
public administration. However, this was not translated in an effective
contribution to the policy-making process, and this shortcoming badly affected
the credibility and sustainability of NGOs and more specifically human rights
organizations.
At times,
the work of human rights organizations was depicted (whether rightly or not) as
serving a certain political agenda, leading to a certain apprehension. The fact
that most opposition groups in the Arab countries used human rights or rights
groups to act against established regimes contributed to the image of human
rights activism serving a struggle for power instead of fight for values. The
quasi absence of independent Arab originated funding to support human rights
initiatives in the region strengthened the monopoly of foreign donors which
left scars on an already negative perception that rights groups are acting in
the stream of foreign agendas. The context of political repression and the fact
that most of these organizations in general failed to embrace high standards in
their work consolidated these apprehensions, and prevented them from building mass
support through small givers and volunteers.
At another
level, the repressive framework in most countries of the region contributed to
the disengagement of many actors, not the least being the private sector and
high net worth individuals. “Capital holders” channeled their donations to
“safe interventions”, mostly of social, cultural, and environmental nature.
Initiatives related to human rights, policy-making, accountability, and similar
topics were avoided in general due to the perceived risks of creating conflicts
with governments.
The recent
developments in the region have triggered the interest of many governmental and
private actors from outside the region. Some countries are flooded with money
by major donors, while at the same time NGOs are mushrooming. Consequently,
donations will now be sought and used by a large number of organizations of
various capacities and purposes. The chaotic development of the civil society
sector (more specifically organizations working on human rights,
democratization and the like) in the countries undergoing a transition is
therefore a major challenge to effective philanthropy.
The
transition processes in the region (as in most other places) will be painful
and lengthy. Previous experiences show that such transitions are not reversible
and no matter how costly they can be, they will lead to a renewed social contract
in each of the affected countries. Moreover, this dynamic will spill over to
other countries. In this context, philanthropy will have a vital role to play.
One significant obstacle to fulfilling this role will be whether the proponents
of worldwide philanthropy will be able to partner with local and regional grantmaking
organizations to maximize on their knowledge of the local context.
The protesters in the Arab streets unanimously demanded “dignity”,
“freedom” and “social justice”. Fulfilling the expectations of these protesters
requires an all-inclusive approach by actors involved in social change whereby
the public sector, civil society organizations, academia, social opinion
makers, donors and the private sector acknowledge each has a role to play in
this venture and agree to be involved and cooperate with the other actors.
Moreover, it requires a thorough knowledge of the context which international
donors will not be able to acquire without genuine and strong partnerships with
local actors. This partnership is not as simple as it might
look like but the starting
question is whether the international donors are keen on listening to the voices
from the region this time.
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