Active Citizenship and Gendered Social Entitlements (ACGEN)

Communication strategies are central to this effort to increase women's political participation, citizenship rights, and access to social entitlements. As the first step in its effort to build local and regional cooperation and partnership among scholars, development practitioners, NGOs, grassroots groups and other actors, ACGEN established a research network to act as the core reference group for this project - the Machreq Research Network for Active Citizenship (MARNAC). This network is participating fully in the project implementation, analysis, and plan of action.

Combining aspects of participatory approaches and action-research with grounded theory, MARNAC is working to answer questions which include, but are not limited to: What type of active citizenship exists in each of the 3 countries? How are access to and provision of social entitlements engendered? What is the relationship between civil society, NGOs, and the state in negotiating social entitlements? What kind of space, if any, do NGOs and governments open for the active participation of citizens - within their own structures and in decision-making processes at large - and how is this space created and supported? Specifically, the research is to be carried out by local research teams in several stages:

1. A literature review - including both organisational documents and peer-reviewed studies and gray literature produced by universities, research centres, government agencies and ministries, policy makers, development agencies, and scholarly and professional journals;
2. A mapping of health, education, and welfare services in each of the 3 countries;
3. Field research into a sample of NGOs in order to ascertain how NGOs that provide health, education, and welfare services implement their activities and assess how and if these activities contribute to notions and practice of women's active citizenship;
4. Analysis of the findings and development of a typology of NGOs that includes assessment of their relationships with both the state and their client communities - featuring "best practices" and the organisational characteristics associated with the promotion of equitable and participatory citizenship and advocacy for gendered social entitlements; and
5. Development of strategic country action plans to increase women's active citizenship and access to entitlements based on the research findings.

The research process draws on face-to-face communication, as illustrated by its use of focus group discussions and/or individual open interviews with selected NGOs, local women beneficiaries and their communities, national women's machineries (official mechanisms in charge of the promotion of women's rights and interests), selected state institutions, key international donors, and other key stakeholders. Regional workshops to hone research methodologies and to share findings, as well as local workshops to share information and seek feedback as a means of preparing the action plans, have also been held. Printed reports are being shared through the use of information and communication technology (ICT) in the form of the ACGEN website; see, for example, the Knowledge Production section, where various documents associated with the project may be downloaded in PDF format.

The findings are being used to design a regional advocacy campaign aimed at raising public awareness of active citizenship and gendered social entitlements. Then, a comprehensive programme will be undertaken to build the capacity of local NGOs to promote the concept and practice of women's active citizenship. The ultimate goal of this process is to develop a body of local knowledge about the role and scope of Egyptian, Palestinian, and Lebanese NGOs that negotiate gendered social entitlements and their relationship to the state and the communities they serve.

Women, Gender, Political Participation, Rights.

ACGEN regards citizenship not as an end in itself but, rather, as a means to social, political and economic participation in society. To support this process, good governance and pressure in and outside the region to give civil society a greater voice are key, according to ACGEN.

The 2002 Arab Human Development Report identified the lack of women's empowerment as one of three major deficits in the Arab region. Since then the region has seen the launch of numerous initiatives by NGOs, governments, donors, and their partners to address this deficit. In some countries in the Mashreq and Maghreb, NGOs can fill a gap left by states in providing health, education, and social welfare services, as well as advocate alongside women's national machineries on a range of issues such as political participation. ACGEN is working to support the pivotal role of NGOs while addressing potential weaknesses through capacity building and advocacy efforts, as described above.