The right to form civil society organizations and the freedom of its action is a cornerstone in the process of democratic transition in the communities, out of this conviction Maat for Peace, Development and Human Rights began in the implementation of project’s activities, "The Exchange of Experiences to promote the values of dialogue of cultures - the right to freedom of organizing civil work", in collaboration with Anna Lindh Foundation for the Dialogue of Cultures and in partnership with a number of civil society organizations from Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, Palestine.
The project seeks to improve the legislative framework governing the civil work in the Arab region, by organizing a number of local and regional workshops, to discuss the reality of the freedom to organize civil work in Egypt and come up with recommendations to improve the legislative and procedural frameworks ruling, and to build the capacity of actors in the areas of advocacy and building networks and alliances , and lay the foundations for the formation of national and regional networks to promote the civil work.
The first local workshops in the context of the project launched by holding a workshop in Assiut governorate on Thursday the 24th of October 2013, with the participation of representatives of a number of NGOs that are members of the Egyptian National Network of Anna Lindh Foundation, as well as non-members of the network.
The workshop started with a presentation of Anna Lindh activities and explaining the project and its objectives, activities and expected results, and then a review of the historical and legal reality of the civil work in Egypt, then discussions and Q&A started from the participants, which focused on the challenges facing the civil work and how to overcome them through developing legislative and procedural changes to the civil work environment in Egypt.
The participants focused their Q&A on the need to provide a constitutional framework ensures the liberalization of civil work and enables the civil organizations to participate effectively in the process of economic, social, cultural and political development.
Participants also focused on the need to support the active civil work organizations at the local level, also pointed to the need that the legislative changes in the law include distinguish between organizations that have the institutional capacity that enables them to work at the national level, and those whose their capacity enables them to operate at the level of specific communities, and that legislative support is available for both types of organizations with developing specific criteria for each type.
It is worth mentioning that Maat will present the recommendations resulted from local workshops in the regional workshop that will be held in mid-November, it will also seek to deliver these recommendations to the Committee on the amendment of the Constitution, and the Ministry of Social Solidarity to be taken in consideration during the development of articles of civil work in the Constitution, as well as during the process of amending the law of civil associations and institutions.