(January31,2010) Dead Sea, Upon an initiative by Foundation for the Future, a Regional Conference on "Research on civil society organizations: status and prospects",  convened at the King Hussein Convention Center - Dead Sea, January 26- 28th, 2010, under the patronage of HE Minister of Political Development. The conference brought together more than 90 academics, researchers and activists at the national, regional and international levels, where they exchanged views on a number of researches and commentaries analyzing the current status of all studies and literature that have been completed in the Arab region and Iran on civil society over the past two decades.

In her opening speech, Ms. Nabila Hamza stressed that the civil society has achieved a new status in the early nineties of the twentieth century as "one of the key contributory mechanisms to the democratization process." She added that the most important aim of the conference was to "Expand our understanding of the features of development of civil society we are witnessing in the Middle East and North Africa, through critical review of literature and research with a view to identifying research gaps, and the development of program priorities."

  The first day of the conference was dedicated to reviewing the six working papers summarizing the status of available literature on civil society organizations during the last two decades, in each of the following countries: the Maghreb Countries, the Gulf States, along with Jordan, Egypt, Palestine, Iraq and Iran.

Interventions during the conference highlighted the diversity of local experiences, including the differences between the various countries of the Maghreb or the Gulf states. Presentations stressed the importance of peculiarities, but some participants objected the idea of generalizing an Arab or Islamic particularities with ideological charges, which could create a prejudice to particular international covenants, such as fundamental rights of women or minorities.

All participants agreed that civil society's aim is not to access power, but some noted that the mere talk about civil society, often represent a politically charged speech, which leaves the researcher vulnerable to pressure whenever he tries to study the phenomenon in a scientific and objective manner. While some considered that the problem still lies in the nature of Arab State, which added a state of ambiguity on the roles of civil society organizations and their impacts, but widespread criticism was directed to the performance of these organizations, as many of them still lacked internal democracy,  transparency, professionalism and the will to overcome self subjectivity, others cling to their autonomy from the State without having to include the rest of the parties, which did not translate into a suggestion.

There was also a discussion about the statute of religion in the formulation of values, affecting the civil society's relationship with the general population, and its relationship to the various components of modernism, such as liberalism, secularism, and the establishment of a state and civic culture system.

The interventions and experiences highlighted the difference and the diversities from one community to another, on how to deal with religious associations, with recognition of their performance and the size of their representation in the charitable sector. In this context, a reference was made to the issues of the endowment the Zakat collection committees and the relationship of their role in providing services to broad segments of the population.
The features that was triggered by the public debate and the review of the various experiences, Have confirmed the need for the researcher to start from the reality that the civil society organizations are moving in, to establish a theoretical base. This calls for the need of theorizing from the field, not a projection of beyond reality. The researcher also should take into account the different, capitalist, social, cultural and economic interests, which contributes to defining the position of effective organizations.

Several interventions hinted to the need for reforming the relationship between the academia and research centers, On the one hand, and civil society organizations on the other hand, since the latter wants to build a partnership with research entities, and not to only be a mere topic for research, while some university academia, still shy away from cooperation in this area. This requires interaction, and the institutionalization of dialogue and cooperation between them.

Some interventions also called on civil society organizations to define their priorities, and to reject the imposition of donors' agendas. In this context, they reviewed the many experiences and approaches that enabled all participants to perform the comparison process, and opened up the possibility for coordination and the structuring of joint action in the next phase.

A set of practical recommendations has emerged from this conference most important ones can be summarized in the following points:

• Emphasizing on the need to support scientific research on issues of civil society, and to regard it as a priority, that must be included in strategies to support this vital sector.
• Work on bridging the gap in relations between civil society organizations, academics and researchers, in order to narrow the gap between organizations and universities, and building trust between the parties.
• The research should be directed to focus on the evaluation of studies that have been completed, and criticism of concepts that have been adopted, with priority given to studies on the development of indicators for measuring the performance of civil society.
• The need to create an observatory to follow the evolution of civil society organizations in both forms, quantitative and qualitative, and to provide assistance to them, and the establishment of a data base on this phenomenon, that it would also includes a database of researchers.
 • The need to map the Arab civil society organizations, as well as mapping the risk of emerging challenges that threaten the third sector.
• Inviting the Foundation For the Future to establish partnership with research and study centers at both, the regional and international levels, in order to exchange information and experiences relating to the empowerment of civil society.
• The establishment of a dedicated website involving the Foundation for the Future with the Arab Network for NGO’s to be an open source for the parties wishing to do so.
• The deepening of partnerships between research centers in the Arab world and their counterparts in the West, not to copy or be impacted by their dissertations, but to get acquainted with their experiences and to interact with them by virtue of the existing commonalities they share in the various local and global spaces.