Ambitious Efforts to Boost Bahrain’s Civil Society

In countries where civic activism makes a difference, civil society organizations (CSOs) are working hard to build their capabilities and increase their effectiveness in raising the civic culture that is vital to democratic growth.  The Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) Local Grants program is supporting Bahrain’s efforts to foster a vigorous civil society that would pave the way for active citizen participation in public life.  With MEPI’s support, Business Care, a Bahraini CSO, conducted a Train-the-Trainer workshop for a group of Bahraini activists on successful methods of conducting training and effectively delivering a message to CSOs.  The trainers, in turn, led three training sessions for members of six Bahraini CSOs working in the field of democratic development, and provided them with skills and tools to enhance their membership, improve volunteer-generated work, and increase their operational efficiency.

Next steps in the MEPI grant project will be to continue the series of capacity building workshops that would conclude with participant-generated action plans, the sharing of best practices, and the creation of a ‘Bahrain Civil Society Best Practices Guidebook’, that would be available to non-participants CSOs through distributed copies and uploads on Business Care’s website.  Mr. Sadiq Jaffer, Director of Business Care, was pleased to witness the workshop participants’ satisfaction.  He said, “It is great to see how different types of CSOs are interacting in the program and committing [themselves] for one year to develop their strategic capacities and to generate greater social impact.”  He expects that the action plans produced by participants will indicate the success of this program and the necessity to repeat the experience to other CSOs in Bahrain.

The project was covered in the local press such as Akhbar Al Khaleej, and AlWaqt.