Commendation of the Development of Relationship between Them
Commendation of the Development of Relationship between Them
Hasan Alrubai’
Iraqi Al-Amal Association (NGO organization), praised the positive change in the relationship between civil society and the decision makers, specifically the parliament, and the development in the government’s attitude towards allowing the demonstrations, and directing the security forces to protect the demonstrators (although there were cases of arrests, detention and interrogation). Al-Amal also praised the religious authorities (Margi’ia) and their positive stance on the demands for building a civil state and build bridges of communication and dialogue between leaders of the protests and activists and the religious authorities.
The assessment was presented in Al-Amal Board of Trustees’ report submitted to their ninth annual conference which was held in Kahramana Hotel in Baghdad. They discussed plans, programs and projects implemented during the past period as well as the reports of the association’s offices in a number of governorates and the administrative and financial reports followed by the election of a new Board of Trustees for the Association.
Hanaa Edwar (member of the Board of Trustees) said to Al-Sabah “The Conference is an opportunity to review the conformity of the implemented projects and programs to the planned actions. The last period witnessed many changes in accordance with the new reality. Attention was paid to the issues of the displaced people and the empowerment of women and youth as well as focusing on human rights issues as a result of the crimes committed by Daash, noting the leading role by Iraqi Al-Amal Association in the advocacy campaigns to exercise pressure on the decision makers, particularly with regards to the legislations on issues of rights and freedoms.
Edwar continued to say that the association did not act alone but had cooperated with other civil society organizations in the framework of Civil Initiative and with the Iraqi Women’s Network to develop and deepen the civil work in Iraq.
The former chairman of the Association’s Board of Trustees, Noaman Muna, stated that no work is without but, by its nature, the civil society deals with events with high flexibility and sets its priorities towards human development in all forms in order to be effective through collective work and not alone, most notably dealing with the political structure and building a State based on the law and respect for the fundamental freedoms and enhancement of democracy.”
The Executive Manager, Jamal Al-Jawahery, said that there are factors which contribute to the success of civil work, foremost of which is the funding operation which depends entirely on foreign donors because of the lack of national funding. That is why projects slow down. The instability of the staff working in the NGOs has a profound effect on the continuation of the civil work. For those reasons we were keen to register for the “social security” for the staff in the Association to retain them
Published in Al-Sabah Newspaper on October 14th 2015