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Egypt |
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Former Projects |
Promoting Effective and Active Civic Engagement
Counterpart International (Counterpart) worked closely with the Biblioteca Alexandrina, viewed by many as the beacon for civil society dialogue, communication and mentoring in the Middle East, on its Promoting Effective and Active Civic Engagement (PEACE) program. The program strengthened the democratic culture in Egypt by building the capacity of non-governmental organizations, and engaging citizens and government in civic dialogue and reform.
Objectives:
- strengthen the institutional development of four PEACE NGO partners and enhance their capacity to form coalitions and carry out advocacy campaigns;
- engage citizens in Alexandria in the democratic process by developing stronger ties between citizens and NGOs in advocacy efforts; and
- improve the ability of the Alexandria government to engage with citizens and NGOs in dialogue and reform.
The PEACE program enabled NGOs and their constituents to become catalysts for change through a two-way process – a public dialogue between government and citizens with NGOs acting as facilitators, protectors and advocates for citizen interests.
Counterpart strengthened the PEACE NGO's institutional capacity and advocacy expertise by providing technical assistance and Training of Trainers (ToT) in a variety of field-tested modules designed to strengthen the financial and administrative management, governance, financial sustainability, and advocacy capacity of our partner NGOs. This process began with Participatory Organizational Development Assessments: a process where PEACE staff worked closely with PEACE partner NGOs to help them take an in-depth look at their own organizations and identify priority areas where they would like to receive technical assistance.
Following the Assessments, PEACE NGOs developed Action Plans for the coming years. Those Action Plans were used by the PEACE NGOs to identify key technical and other inputs that will be implemented during the year.
To help close the gap between citizens, NGOs and local government in Alexandria, Counterpart worked together to broker relationships among the PEACE NGOs, local government officials and citizens by:
- providing training in Social Partnership, to build trust and demonstrate the value of dialogue and cooperation;
- offering international learning exchanges to selected local government officials from Alexandria to provide them with access to successful models of citizen/NGO engagement in other countries; and
- facilitating roundtables, town hall meetings and other forums to give local government, NGOs and citizens the opportunity to discuss community needs and ways for each sector to contribute.
To learn more about Counterpart's PEACE Project in Egypt, please read the following feature stories:
Community Dialogue Leads to Viable Solutions to Local Challenges in Alexandria