CONFERENCE
| NOVEMBER 2015

In November 2015, Candid Foundation hosted in cooperation with the German Federal Foreign Office the G7 Deauville-Partnership-Conference on Economic Governance and Social Justice in Berlin.

Bringing together Arab Civil Society actors, German political foundations as well as official representatives from the EU, OECD, IWF and Worldbank, we enabled a vivid exchange of opinions, experiences and challenges with regard to transformation processes in the Deauville partner countries. Facing representatives of all parties involved in the Deauville Partnership, Civil Society activists from Morocco, Tunisia, Libya, Egypt, Yemen and Jordan were given the opportunity to express recommendations for actions, questioning existing processes and their implementation.

Over the past years, the world witnessed social and political uprisings in the Arab world. Civil Society Organisations were a major force in aggregating protests and formulating demands and have since grown in number – despite some governments trying to prevent civil society activism. Macroeconomic reforms and market liberalisations in some Arab countries before and after the Arab Spring may have opened up opportunities, however, a huge part of the populations is sceptic whether these changes will have positive impact on their economic and social status.

So far, the involvement of civil society in these processes has not been a priority.

To foster the dialogue and the exchange about challenges and needs of the civil society in the MENA region, Candid Foundation and the German Federal Foreign Office wanted to create within the framework of the Deauville Partnership a forum of exchange for representatives of Arab Civil Society Organisations, policy makers, governments, donor institutions, entrepreneurs and international development institutions.

In dialogue with the official representatives from the G7, EU, OECD, IWF and Worldbank, the guests from the Arab civil society developed a guiding document for future partnerships, which was handed over to the German Presidency of the G7 and became part of its offical documentation.