Objectives and rationale
The relevance and effectiveness of the Foundation’s work require the rigor to understand and learn more about the context of intervention. The Foundation believes in a policy-oriented and applied-research model to build outcome-based knowledge that can be relevant to inform decision-making and strategies. Conferences, roundtables, seminars, studies and publications are the tools chosen by the Foundation for the Future to implement this approach, with a particular interest and commitment to giving accessibility and visibility to emerging issues and trends in the MENA region.
The Research Department of the Foundation for the Future was established with the aim of undertaking research activities and commissioning studies on topics of relevance to the Foundation’s mandate. By relying on evidence-based research, the Foundation seeks to understand the role that research plays in the range of civil society organization (CSO) activities, including advocacy, networking, campaigning, and building partnerships and practical projects, in order to advance the work of CSOs. Through this approach, the Foundation intends to shed light on the accomplishments and weaknesses of existing research studies/projects, and draw conclusions on ways to improve links between research and grant making in the region. It will ultimately formulate recommendations for a long/mid-term strategy on the best means to support civil society in the region.
Main achievements
The Foundation relied on a comprehensive literature review of research undertaken on the status and effectiveness of civil society in the MENA countries to organize a regional conference from the 26th till the 28th of January 2010 under the title ‘Research on Civil Society Organizations: Status and Prospects’. The aim of the conference was to stimulate discussion on the status of research on CSOs in the region, which in turn would enable the Foundation to identify its research priorities and develop a methodological approach for a more effective targeting of CSOs. The conference, which culminated in the adoption of a series of key recommendations, was attended by about 100 regional and international researchers. The conference significantly contributed to developing the Foundation’s approach to action research.
Prior to the research conference, the Foundation had organized workshops in collaboration with a variety of organizations, including Freedom House and the International Centre for Democratic Transition (ICDT). This is in addition to organizing a major conference on the ‘Security Sector Governance in the Arab Region: What Role for Civil Society?’ in 2009, in collaboration with the Geneva Centre for Democratic Control of the Armed Forces and Birzeit University’s Institute of Law.
The Foundation has also organized in 2010 an expert group meeting on ‘Tools for Enhancing CSO Accountability: Lessons Learnt from International Practices’. It brought together around 100 experts from over 15 countries, including Jordan, the USA, Uganda, Egypt, Palestine, Pakistan, Tunisia and Morocco. The meeting provided an opportunity for these experts to network and exchange ideas on the advantages and disadvantages of using various tools to gauge CSOs’ accountability.
In September 2010, the Foundation successfully convened in Amman, Jordan, a regional conference on ‘Building Networks for CSOs to Combat Human Trafficking in the MENA Region’.
The Foundation is also an active supporter of action-research initiatives promoted by CSOs in their respective field and environment. Till date, action-research projects have looked into Civil Society Index (Al Urdun Al-Jadid Research Centre, Jordan), Quality Assessment of Democracy (PILDAT, Pakistan), or Security Sector Governance (Institute of Law at Birzeit University, Palestine, and Centre for Middle Eastern and Strategic Studies, Lebanon) to name just a few of the action-research grants awarded by the Foundation in recent years.
The Foundation is currently collaborating with various think-tanks and specialists for research projects around democracy assistance, transitional justice and civil society mapping. The results will be published in 2011.