Where is the Money for Women's Rights in the Middle East and North Africa?

AWID: What was the MENA strategy meeting all about?

Leila Hessini (LH): The objective of this meeting was to engender dialogue
across donors and women's rights organisations, and between different
women's rights and social justice groups in the MENA region around the
issue of resource mobilisation. This was accomplished through an analysis
of the geopolitical and resource-mobilisation challenges that women's
rights groups face and by identifying potential strategies for addressing
these challenges in ways that strengthen women's movements.

Resource mobilisation is a deeply political issue in the region as funds
are used to support certain agendas, perspectives, and strategies over
others. While literally hundreds of millions of dollars are being poured
into certain countries ? through the E.U.'s Mediterranean Partnership
program, the U.S. Millennium Challenge Account and other bilateral and
foundational support - hardly any of this is going to support women's
rights organisations in the MENA region.

Increased support from some donors is going to support faith-based
initiatives and "moderate Muslims" as if this is the only viable strategy
in the region. US policies - such as the Patriot Act - make it seem risky
for US-based organisations to fund MENA groups whilst the Global Gag
Rule[1] (GGR) curtails freedom of speech and limits discussions of
comprehensive sexual and reproductive rights.

AWID: Why focus on the MENA region?

LH: A focus on the MENA region is important for many reasons. Firstly,
there is a long history of women's rights activism and scholarship
throughout the MENA region that is at best unknown, and at worst ignored or
even purposely silenced by international organisations and actors.
Providing opportunities to listen to, and learn from, MENA women's
theorising and advocacy is critical to filling this knowledge gap.

Secondly, MENA women activists are often unrepresented at global events -
such as UN conferences - where key decisions are taken that affect women in
the region. Their inclusion at such meetings is especially important given
that governments from key countries in the region such as Egypt and Iran
often create expedient allies with governments like the US to enact
repressive policies that are detrimental to women's rights, especially
their sexual and reproductive rights. Moreover, some of the key global
challenges - ending occupation in Palestine and Iraq, and finding a
solution to the crisis in Darfur, for example - are located in the region
and a feminist and women-centered analysis of these tragedies - and their
potential solutions - is lacking. Donors are increasing support for
"democracy," "peace" and "security", but what is the feminist analysis of
these issues and what is their impact on women's rights activism?

AWID: Hadil, how were you involved in the meeting and why was it so
important?

Hadil El-Khouly (HEK): I was a participant at the Young Women's Dialogue
which started one day before the meeting. Together with four other
colleagues from the Young Women's Dialogue from Yemen, Lebanon, Palestine
and Algeria we gave feedback to the meeting on young women's perspectives
on challenges to resource mobilisation, movement building and concrete
steps and recommendations to overcome these challenges. My part was about
analysing the current situation of the women's rights movement in the MENA
region.

It was an important meeting for the women's rights organisations in the
region as it provided the space to directly interact with donors and
address some of the main challenges faced in the region. For example one of
the challenges is that the region is very diverse, and so are the
strategies that have different effects in different contexts; this is a
point that donors need to be aware of. Furthermore the meeting triggered
discussion on the current situation of the women's rights movements in the
region in general and how we collectively affect change despite our
differences.

It was a unique experience for young feminists as it was the first time
for many of us to actually meet young women from the same region to
specifically share our experiences, views and concerns regarding our
integration and involvement in the women's rights movement in the MENA
region.

AWID: Can you tell us about some of the funding issues in the MENA region
from your perspective as a young feminist?

HEK: There is no doubt that the scarcity of funding for women's rights
organisations in general is heavily reflected in the funding situation of
women's rights organiations in the MENA region. Obtaining funding and
resource mobilisation in general has become even more difficult in the
region in the last five years, leading to a shift from collective action to
build strong movements that can realise effective change, to fragmentation
and isolation of each organisation due to the growing competitiveness over
these scarce resources.

I believe that the difficult funding situation in the region has gradually
contributed to an increased focus on our role as executive directors, staff
members or fundraisers in our organisations, a self perception that came to
the forefront over our unique work and identities as activists.

What also makes resource mobilisation a challenge to women's rights
organisations in the region is the restrictive government policies these
NGO's are operating under. In light of the authoritarian nature most
governments in the region are characterised by, the control over NGO's is a
challenge in terms of establishment of NGO's and obtainment of funding. This
is made even more difficult concerning some donor policies that apply a
complex application process and come with rather bureaucratic procedures
not considering the harsh political, legal and economic conditions faced by
the majority of NGO's in the region.

The issue of foreign funding constitutes also a major challenge to resource
mobilisation in the region on two fronts. Namely a) the US occupation and
its controversial interest in the region had the detrimental effect of
channelling funds in the
regions that are mainly political and therefore avoided by many NGO's; and
b)governments in the region either deny access to foreign funding at all or
embark on stigmatising NGO's that obtain foreign funding as agents that work
with a "western agenda".

Access to funding for young feminist organisations or young women in
general is limited also because even though the majority of women's rights
organisations recognise the importance of working with young women, a cross
cutting strategy on how this can be achieved is still absent. Young women's
voices are not yet completely integrated in the national or regional
feminist discourse. This leads to an uncertainty amongst donors on how to
support these young women.

AWID: Some of the positive feedback coming from the meeting has described
it as being a significant space for young feminists to engage in the
issues. How would you describe the involvement of young feminists?

HEK: I believe the Young Women's Dialogue gave the participants a sense of
belonging and solidarity that was carried with them into the larger
meeting. This helped them engage with resource mobilisation and challenges
of the feminist movement in the region positively rather than just claiming
space for young feminists and not using that space to voice our perspectives
with regard to the issues discussed in the meeting. The young feminists also
brought in new and different insights to the meeting, whether in the small
group discussions or in the panels, such as the need to fight the violation
of women's sexual and bodily rights in the region.

AWID: Leila, what were some of the outcomes of the meeting and future
thinking on funding in the region?

LH: This conference was an important step in creating opportunities for
dialogue and understanding across diverse groups of MENA women activists,
international organisations and donors. Through the process of envisioning
a future resource mobilisation strategy, participants were able to explore
emerging funding challenges and opportunities in different sectors and
regions whilst identifying strategies to increase existing resources and
mobilise new support for women's rights work.

For example, some donors committed to increase their support to women's
groups in the region, to provide core support rather than project-specific
funds to allow grantees more flexibility, and to commit to multi-year
grants. Others agreed to support certain areas - such as culture and the
arts - that are under-funded. New strategies for women's rights groups to
mobilise their own resources - through individual giving, local resource
mobilisation and income-generating projects ? were also outlined as
necessary to ensuring the financial sustainability of women's rights groups
in the region.

AWID: Hadil, what was the most important outcome of the meeting for you?

HEK: As part of the follow up to the meeting, the participants at the young
women's dialogue are discussing the creation of a network that can link us
together and through which we can collectively take action to contribute to
building a stronger feminist movement in the MENA region.

AWID: Leila, what stood out for you in terms of how successful the meeting
was ? and how do you measure the success of such a meeting?

LH: The conference methodology was unique in that it adopted a
multi-generational approach and provided space and ownership of the
conference to young women who made up 20% of the participants. It featured
the vast diversity of organizations, approaches and strategies used across
MENA women's organisations. This diversity was evident in the political
history of certain groups, generational differences and strategies
developed in response to local contexts and realities.

While some women's organisations situate their demands in a historic,
cultural and religious framework that presents an alternative to Islamists'
model of what it means to be a Muslim woman, others are holding their
governments accountable to universal human rights and working to oppose US
interventionist policies. Most groups in the region have not traditionally
worked on sexual and reproductive rights, however the centrality of
sexuality for any discussion of women's rights was
highlighted by the LGBT groups and others. Our physically-challenged
sisters reminded us how their voices and realities have been silenced and
ignored by most donors as well as women's organisations. And the very-real
power dynamics that can exist between donors and women's groups and between
international and local groups was recognised and debated during several
panel and break-out sessions.

>From an immediate perspective, this meeting was successful in that its
original objectives were accomplished. However, genuine change takes time
and we will need to continue to monitor funding in the region and create
opportunities for different groups to meet, strategise and work together
towards a better, safer and more just world.


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Leila Hessini, born in Algeria, now lives in Morocco and serves as senior
policy advisor at Ipas, a global organisation that promotes women's sexual
and reproductive rights. She has written extensively on the women's
movement in the Middle East and North Africa. Leila serves on several
boards that promote women's human rights.

Hadil El-Khouly is currently working at the International Relations unit at
the Center for Egyptian Women's Legal Assistance (CEWLA). She was born in
Germany as a daughter to Egyptian parents and then moved back with her
parents to Egypt where she completed her high school education at the
German school in Cairo. She then joined CEWLA at the age of 18 and obtained
her bachelor of law at the Cairo University where she studied parallel to
her work with CEWLA.

Notes:
[1] The 'global gag rule' is a policy of the United States government that
denies US family planning funding to foreign non-governmental organisations
that perform abortions, provide counselling and referral for abortion, or
lobby to make abortion legal or more widely available in their countries.