Workshop on the economic reform and the private sector in the BMENA Region in the context of the international financial crisis

The Lebanese Organization for Civil Activities (OPAC) and the Italian organisation “No Peace Without Justice” (NPWJ), in partnership with the governments of Morocco and Italy, organised a Workshop on the economic reform and the private sector in the BMENA Region in the context of the international financial crisis, held in Beirut, Lebanon, on 26-27 September 2009.

The meeting aimed at promoting productive dialogue on a peer-to-peer basis between civil society and governments of the broader Middle East and North Africa (bMENA), G8 and other democratic partners, on issues relating to the economic reform process and its interconnections with political development, democracy and human rights. The Beirut Workshop was intended to provide a setting for concrete exchanges between high-level governmental and non-governmental actors from the region aiming at the development of proposals and goals that can be jointly agreed upon by them. The workshop aimed at discussing those issues related to the role of the corporate social responsibility, transparency and private sector in addressing social justice, unemployment and poverty as well as at discussing strategies which could enable broader development in the region.

The Beirut Workshop built upon the guiding principles for stronger dialogue and cooperation between governments and civil society contained in the “Partnership document”, which has been acknowledged by the fifth Forum of the Future held in Abu Dhabi in October 2008.

Participants included high-level governmental representatives and prominent democracy activists as well as representatives of regional and international Institutions.

The meeting was part of a series of initiatives organised in preparation for the 2009 Forum for the Future, under the Italian and Moroccan co-presidency, in coordination with the Democracy Assistance Dialogue (DAD) partnership. The results of the Workshop will be presented to the Ministerial Meeting of the Forum for the Future 2009, foreseen in Morocco on 2-3 November 2009, to provide a set of constructive proposals and recommendations that could fruitfully feed the discussion between government and civil society.
 
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For further information, please contact: Gianluca Eramo, email: geramo@npwj.org, phone: +32 494 533 925.