Civil society channels ideas into action
By: Abdelaziz Karraky
The International Forum for Human Development was held in Agadir, shortly after the international summit hosted by the Secretary-General of the United Nations to discuss the Millennium Development Goals in New York on 20-22 September 2010. Both events confirm that development has become a prominent topic in international relations, and a crucial mechanism to eradicate poverty in many regions of the world.
It has thus become urgent to examine the different roles played by various actors in this field, especially civil society. So how can the latter contribute to achieving sustainable development in the Maghreb?
Civil society is a mechanism that allows individuals to exercise freedom, and convert it from individual ideas to a collective project. The importance of civil society is even more significant when it comes to sustainable development, since individuals agglomerate to change their living conditions and get rid of vulnerability by becoming wealth creators. Civil society can assume many roles, the most prominent of which can be grouped into three categories:
Firstly: Training the population to take part in a participatory social diagnosis that will help civil society identify needs and development priorities. An accurate field research will result in obtaining quantitative data and indicators to assess the deployed development efforts, and define the obstacles that prevent overcoming poverty once and for all. This stage is critical because it is devoted to a new culture, allowing the population to own development projects instead of being merely subjected to the decisions taken at the central level.
Secondly: Acting as a mediator between the population and other parties. After identifying priority intervention areas, civil society actors should communicate with local elected officials, given their proximity to the population and their familiarity with their living conditions. This aims to include the outcomes of the diagnosis in the local annual budget, which requires elaborating a proximity policy draft that would be difficult to achieve without a genuine involvement of civil society at both stages of planning and activation.
Thirdly: Promoting the culture of participation, since the biggest impediment to development is the predominance of the culture of submission. The participation of civil society in diagnosis and mediation makes people gradually accept their involvement in all projects carried out by the former. People feel that these projects are closer to them, thus giving them a sense of development ownership, and triggering a phase of change. Consequently, gradual transitions emerge in terms of citizens’ behaviors, and participation replaces submission. However, all this wouldn’t be possible unless civil society has human resources that believe in democracy as both an ideology and a practice.
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Your Comments
commentsAnonymous About about 1 year ago
No one can deny the important role played by civil society today in the field of human development, but the lack of resources – especially financial ones -, weighs heavily on its actions. As for human resources, they need capacity building that will lead to behavioral changes, knowing that civil society must now shift from volunteering to professionalism in order to be able to achieve what you described in your article.
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Anonymous About about 1 year ago
Civil society is indeed the best space to practice freedoms collectively. However, in the Maghreb countries, we have developed a special perception about civil society, considering it only a space to practice freedoms, while forgetting that it is also a real mechanism to achieve development. Therefore, I think that most people won’t understand what you tackled in your article, based on a development approach that calls for considering civil society a real partner in the development process. We are used to considering civil society a remarkable space for protest and criticism, and ignoring it for all the rest. We should be brave and say that civil society is weak on all levels, particularly when it comes to interaction and assessing public policies. Al-Mahdi al-Aatwani
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Anonymous About about 1 year ago
I think that civil society in the Maghreb is unable to carry out the roles you mentioned. It seems to me that you are projecting the roles of civil society in developed countries, on the Arab Maghreb. That’s your problem, you Arab intellectuals, you are disconnected from reality. You read about the experiences of developed countries and think that it is possible to automatically transfer them to the Arab Maghreb, as if the cultural aspect was not part of the communities’ identity. But that’s okay; you encourage globalization in everything and think that Western achievements are also doable in developing countries. I would like to remind you that civil society in the Maghreb did not emerge to defend freedom; it was rather merely allowed to exist by the political bodies. Therefore, the emergence of civil society was distorted, and its basic aspect is permanent weakness that makes it run after political authorities, if not to beg for financial resources, then to at least gain recognition and legitimacy. I can’t expect civil society to undertake a social diagnosis to identify priorities, because society itself only recognizes the State. Consequently, I think that what you said about civil society is only valid for other countries that are nothing like the Arab Maghreb.
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Anonymous About about 1 year ago
Culture is the biggest impediment to development, because it determines and shapes the behaviors of individuals. This makes us question upbringing mechanisms as they are the ones that push individuals to introspect ideas, customs, traditions and even religions. I think that our civil society is still unaware of the role assigned to it, since it did not yet achieve independence from political actors. As for the experiences of the Arab Maghreb countries, they are not similar since the political power in each country aspires to accomplish its own project, which might be quite different from those of other countries. I personally think that it’s difficult to generalize on this front, and that’s exactly what you did, so please consider re-analyzing the topic. Al-Mehdi al-Fassi.
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Anonymous About about 1 year ago
Nobody can deny that civil society figures prominently in contemporary societies; it is a real alternative to governmental practice, provided that it has the needed competence and professionalism. And nobody can deny today the role that civil society plays, or can play, in sustainable development provided that it is familiar with the concepts of governance, local democracy and participatory processes, as you mentioned. Besides, I totally agree with you that civil society should act not only as a mediator, but also as a partner with a real authority, since it represents the citizens. To achieve this goal, two objectives must be taken into account: 1) Improving the relationship between the government and civil society; 2) developing civil society itself, since several NGOs, especially associations, need guidance, training, and capacity building especially on the local level to enable them to assume the new missions recommended for them to contribute to effective and sustainable development.
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Anonymous About 11 months ago
How can non-governmental organizations and associations obtain guidance and training in capacity-building in order to develop the capacities of their members, and enable the latter to properly perform their duties and thus obtain satisfactory results?
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