News from the Region

NGO's Share their Experiences

In June 2006, MEPI convened a conference in Alexandria, Egypt, which brought together representatives from more than 30 non-governmental organizations (NGOs) in the Middle East and North Africa who had benefited from the MEPI small grant program to share their experiences and learn from each other.

 “This conference not only gave me the chance to learn about others MEPI projects, it also enabled me to better appreciate my own project and see how much I've achieved,” said one participant from Morocco, who is using MEPI funding to stage theatrical plays designed to teach the family code to people throughout the county, including illiterate women who might not otherwise understand their new rights.

At the conference, participants discussed how they planned, budgeted, marketed, and implemented their programs, as well as their monitoring and evaluation strategies.  The agenda also included presentations by American and Arab speakers, as well as group activities and workshops to promote interaction and teach organizational skills.
“Such a program was so valuable to me,” said an Egyptian lawyer who is soon to launch a MEPI project aimed at raising awareness about judicial accountability and transparency in his country.  “It featured real-life situations, with problems specific to our context, and proposed concrete solutions tailored to our resources."

MEPI plans to hold a similar conference next year as a way both to promote successful grassroots reform projects and to offer a framework for identifying legal, financial, and political constraints and the best ways to overcome them as suggested by local reformers.