Maat reservations on the level of government officials' response to calls to participate in civil society activities

Aqeel: The ministers need to verify that there are open doors between their ministries and civil society

Maat Foundation for Peace, Development and Human Rights expresses its “reservation” on the response of government officials and representatives of state agencies to the repeated invitations that the Foundation sends to the bodies and agencies that they represent to participate in dialogue activities and round-table meetings held by the Foundation with the aim of reaching common visions related to reforming public policies in order to enhance respect for human rights And assisting the state to fulfill its international obligations, especially those stemming from the universal periodic review mechanism.

The Foundation believes in the complementarity of roles between civil society organizations, the government and legislative bodies. Therefore, it is keen to invite groups of experts, parliamentarians, media professionals, and relevant civil work leaders. The Foundation is also interested in directing the invitation to the relevant government agencies to participate, and it does so institutionally and before the meetings are held in time. Adequate .

While the Foundation commends the responsiveness of a large number of parliamentarians and their eagerness to participate, as well as the keenness of representatives of the specialized national councils and some ministries such as the Ministry of Health to actively participate and respond to the invitations sent to them, it at the same time denounces the reluctance of most of the concerned ministries to participate, and some of their officials invoke arguments other than Convincing not to share.

Perhaps the closest facts in which the reluctance of some government officials to participate in activities aimed at collaborative work to reform public policies and contribute to fulfilling the voluntary Egyptian pledges before the UPR is evident is what was witnessed by the last round table meeting held by Maat under the title “Towards a national mechanism to follow up the implementation of pledges Egypt faces the universal periodic review mechanism ”, which aimed to discuss the role of the national committee concerned with the UPR file, which was formed by Prime Minister Decision No. 37 of 2015, and how this role can be activated in the interest of Egypt.

Maat invited the concerned ministries, the most important of which were legal and parliamentary affairs, foreign, interior, and justice. However, none of them attended the meeting despite its importance and although the other participants represented parliamentary, national and non-governmental institutions and high-level public figures, and they thankfully provided recommendations and visions for the purpose It was positive and important, and it could have shown the way for officials of the relevant ministries to improve the level of performance in the file of following up on the implementation of Egypt's international commitments.

For his part, Ayman Aqil, Chairman of the Board of Trustees at the Foundation, stated that the “laziness” of government agencies about participating in such meetings gives a negative indication about the seriousness of the official discourse that confirms the absence of rivalry between the government and civil society, and contradicts what government officials say that they are open to Civil society and believers in its role, and Aqeel called on the ministers to verify the existence of open doors between their ministries and civil society, and to work to remove officials who do not pay sufficient attention to this matter, and he also stressed that the institution will not stop when some ministries ignore the invitation and will send all the outputs of the meetings and visions The proposed proposal is sent to the relevant ministries in parallel with sending it to the relevant committees of the Egyptian Parliament.