 Good morning, everyone. And thank you all for joining us for today's program, U.S. Policy in the Arab World, Perspectives from Civil Society. I am Joshua Haber, the Research Associate at the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation, and I am very delighted to welcome you all to this very unique and distinguished panel of researchers and activists representing different countries in the Middle East region. I would in particular like to thank the Arab NGO Network for Development for co-sponsoring this event, and I should also mention that this is the second time that we are hosting the delegation at New America, so welcome back, everyone. Now, at a time when the Arab world is undergoing difficult and stalled political transitions, international attention is mostly focused on the grand showdown between governments and peoples, between regime and opposition, and between Islamists and secularists. But much less attention is paid to the activities that Arab civil society organizations are undertaking at the grassroots level to defend and advocate for the rights of the region's most vulnerable. They are defending citizens facing repression and discrimination, providing humanitarian relief to citizens in need, especially in Syria and surrounding countries, and advocating for the social and economic rights of those suffering the most under the present conditions. But of course, civil society organizations face many obstacles and must confront the challenges of operating in repressive and sometimes violent domestic political environments. Moreover, many groups lack sufficient international support. So one key question that we will discuss today is how can the United States and other countries more effectively support the work and initiatives of civil society organizations in the region? In this discussion, we will also more broadly evaluate U.S. policy toward the region from a civil society perspective, and discuss the ways in which these policies impact the socioeconomic conditions of Arab citizens. We have a broad array of issues to cover, but first I would like to briefly introduce each of our panelists. Out to my right, immediate right, Mahinoor Bedriwi is a research officer at the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, where she focuses on human rights violations and the role of international financial institutions in Egypt. She holds a bachelor's degree in political science from the American University of Cairo, and is currently pursuing a master's of law degree in international human rights law at AUC. Muhammad Lutfi is a senior advisor on strategic policies and inclusive development of the Lebanese Physical Handicap Union, and he has been a leading advocate for the rights of disabled individuals, especially in the Middle East, for more than 15 years. He has worked with local organizations in Lebanon, his country of origin, representing youth with disabilities, and with international organizations such as the Bank Information Center, the Asian Blind Union, and the World Blind Union. Muhammad is currently pursuing a PhD in anthropology at the American University in Washington, D.C. Iran is a Syrian researcher and consultant for the United Nations, including at the U.N. Development Program, the Bureau for Development Policy, and the U.N. Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia. In her various activities working at the grassroots level, Iran has focused on Syrian civil society, youth empowerment, social protection, and poverty elimination. And Muhammadiyah is the policy advisor at the Arab NGO and Network for Development, where she works on issues related to social and economic rights, development policies, trade and investment agreements, and governance issues. She holds a master's of law in international and European economic law and a master's degree in public affairs from the University of California, Los Angeles. So now I will yield the floor to Kinda, as she will discuss the work of the A&D delegation and background of some of its priorities. Kinda. Sure. Thank you, and good morning, everyone. Thank you for joining us in this discussion session on this interesting Monday. So a little bit of reflection on the Arab NGO Network for Development and the delegation that Joshua has mentioned. The A&D is a platform of civil society organizations working across 12 Arab countries. So basically, the network includes seven national networks and more than 200 civil society organizations across these 12 countries. And they work collectively on monitoring economic and social rights and policies in the Arab region. So a lot of our work is basically at the national level in these countries where we follow the status of economic and social conditions, and we engage a lot with U.N. agencies in questioning governments on their obligations under international human rights law, specifically at the economic and social front. But one of the areas that we have been developing in the last several years is monitoring the relations, especially the economic relations between Arab countries and the European Union and Arab countries and the United States, so specifically through trade and investment relations, through financial and development assistance. And we monitor these relations specifically from the perspective of their implications on the economic and social rights and economic and social conditions in our countries. Because as we all know in our world today, it is the way the global economy is being governed and the way we are designing our interface and legal commitments with other countries under the umbrella of trade and investment relations that is very much influencing how our national economies as well are developing and how much our national economies are able to respond to the developmental challenges that citizens face. We see this as central to the challenge we have as a civil society network because this is an area of work that requires us building partnerships across the Mediterranean with European organizations and across the Atlantic with U.S.-based organizations, and this is exactly what we have with the New America Foundation, specifically the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation. We try to work with NAF to bring voices from the region who can reflect on the challenges of different stakeholders and the priorities from their perspectives and also to reflect on how the U.S. relations with Arab countries can accommodate and more effectively respond to these challenges. This is basically generally on the Arab NGO network. The delegation that is facilitated by A&D comes from different Arab countries. This is the second year. We have organized such a delegation to Washington, and we have more experience in facilitating delegations to the European institutions, to Brussels specifically. So we do this every year. And our main aim is to, one, engage with civil society stakeholders, think tanks, researchers and academics that are working on the policy making in the institutions, whether in Brussels or in D.C. But also we are interested in meeting decision makers. So here we meet at the State Department level and at the Congress level with the committees that are dealing with issues related to the region. Our main aim is to bring the voices from the region here. We know there's a lot of think tanks, researchers that are dealing with the Middle East issues. But we think the engagement with people who are on the grounds, with the people who are interested in doing this work and research, this work is very important and brings a lot of added value. And this is evolving to being one of the central pieces of work that the Arab NGO Network for Development will be organizing every year. So hopefully as well we will have other returns. Just to highlight that there is a piece of document outside that reflects some of the point of views on US foreign policy on the political front and the economic front that the delegation have brought forward and you are welcome to pick it up on the way out. Thank you. Thank you very much, Kinda, for setting the stage for this discussion. And I should say on behalf of the Middle East Task Force that we're just very happy to be collaborating with A&D on so many issues. Now before we get started, just a brief note on format. I will begin by addressing specific questions to each of our panelists and following their responses, we'll enter into a broader discussion of the challenges facing civil society and particularly US policy in the region. And finally, of course at the end we'll open it up for questions from the audience. So Mehinoor, I'd like to begin with you. Your institute, along with 56, I think, other Egyptian NGOs, just submitted a report to the United Nations that details some of the priorities and grievances of civil society against successive Egyptian governments. So my question to you is, what are civil society priorities in Egypt and what are your priorities as an NGO? Thank you very much, Joshua. So my name is Mehinoor Radhawi from the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights. Well, if we can highlight the major priority of CSOs or civil society organizations in Egypt, it would be the partnership with governments in the next period, in a new era after popular revolution and then another wave of revolutions in June 30th this year. We see that civil society has a lot to offer to governments that because of different discourse on what are the priorities of the people, we have consecutive revolts in the nation. So if we can highlight some of what the civil society that worked on a particular outcome document like the parallel report to the Committee of Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, the UN Committee, I think a main message was to mainstream economic and social rights as one of the demands of the Egyptians. If we look back in 2011, one of the first calls of the Egyptian Revolution was bread, liberty and social justice. And if we look what does that mean, in reality, it means the need to address issues of severe poverty, inequality and regressive means of wealth distribution. So as far as the report, it's given to the 51st session of the Committee. It was compiled by the Egyptian Center for Economic and Social Rights, co-written by 12 CSOs, including some regional like the AN&D, for example, international NGOs like the Center for Economic and Social Rights, and 10 other organizations that coordinated the work of the rest of the 55 that formed subcommittees to give their input to this outcome. So what was the demand, what did such a report, what did such a work of civil society want to say? Well, it said that in the time of crisis, I mean, we cannot, the revolution was greatly reflected, people's wants and needs and courage, but there is also an economic crisis after it that we cannot ignore. But what it said is that the way to deal with the crisis was, in fact, furthering the past model that wasn't correct or was adding to the frustrations of the people. So what happened after the revolution is that we had economic powers like the IMF, like the G8, trying to contribute to resolving the situation in Egypt by promoting austerity measures, by promoting the past method that it tried to deal with the financial crisis with budget cuts, cutting out social security from the people. But this reflected into popular discontent on the ground. I mean, if we can look at one of the rights that the report highlights, for example, is an adequate standard of living, 86% of the Egyptians reported that their monthly income does not suffice their food needs or clothes or shelter. In the meantime, the international financial institutions have been calling to further cut government support for such institutions. The government responded to that because it needed, I mean, the consecutive Egyptian governments responded to that in hope possibly for political support from world economic superpowers, maybe political as well, which has resulted in an inflation of basic needs, prices like basic food and fuel prices and such. So what do we really want, what do we really call for? Well, we primarily call on our governments to take a different approach to what has been adopted, not just in Egypt, but also worldwide of making the poor and the vulnerable pay for the cost of crises, pay for the burden of reform, I mean, austerity measures and how they have stirred public discontent is not just in Egypt, it's not just on the other side of the Mediterranean, we have seen it in Greece, we have seen it in Spain, we're seeing it in Italy. So we call for a retake on the international development agenda that as it outplays in Egypt, we say that economic indicators are not really enough, I mean, in the Arab region, particularly in Egypt, we could see in the past few years, even preceding the revolution, that there was a GDP growth, but there was an increasing poverty. So we call for progressive taxation, for example, taxing financial sector, briefly those who have more economic leverage and those who have more economic power that should contribute to the crises, not just to put the burden of reform on those who are vulnerable and poor, just because maybe they don't have the power or the leverage to lobby for their interests. Thank you very much. Thank you very much, Mahinor. Mohamed, you have long advocated on behalf of disabled individuals in the Arab world, and recently there has been increasing emphasis on creating inclusive and participatory societies in the region. So how do you view issues of inclusion and accountability in the Arab world today? Thank you, Josh. I have to say this is not an easy question to answer, considering the complexity of the concept as well as the practice of inclusion at the global level and how it is being brought into the Arab region, considering the political transition that's taking place there. Before I answer the question, I would like to briefly address some of the contextual aspects for the practice of inclusion in the Arab world. From our experience working in Lebanon and the Arab region with other grassroots organizations concerned with issues of inclusion and accessibility as two main elements toward fulfilling the rights of persons with disabilities. We've realized that persons with disabilities in the Arab world as like as many other, I mean all other regions in the world, particularly in global south, have been the most undermined group in this part of the world. And if we look at the reports issued by the World Bank and the United Nations, particularly the recent World Report on Disability, it's stated there that at least 15 to 20 percent of the overall population of the world is of persons with disabilities. In a region like the Middle East and North Africa that's been going through lots of political and security term oils, starting from the Arab-Israeli conflict in 1948 and before, the number of persons with disabilities increased tremendously. In a country like Lebanon that experienced 15 years of civil war, also the population of persons with disabilities has increased tremendously and with the ongoing security issues with Israel and now with the Syrian conflict, also the number of persons with disabilities is increasing considering, I mean if we want to add also the population component of Syrian and Palestinian refugees. From the beginning, the Lebanese physical handicapped union has advocated for the integration of issues and rights of persons with disabilities on the agenda of human rights and development. Why is that? Because we've realized that when talking about inclusion and accessibility, the main focus by international organizations, especially those that work in the field of aid operations, have completely focused their interest and operations on issues of political inclusion and accessibility. While the issue of social inclusion and accessibility has been somehow undermined. We try to promote this idea, seeing that the process today toward inclusion and accessibility in the Arab world is still lacking the systematic approach for pursuing a rather universal means of communication mechanisms toward ensuring the inclusion of vulnerable groups, mainly persons with disabilities, women, youth and children in the overall platform of socioeconomic inclusion. Meaning that it's a necessary approach to tackle issues and needs for those who are, for instance, in Lebanon, for 85% of the population of persons with disabilities who have no jobs and 15% of those persons with disabilities, I mean, only 4% of them have received education of various levels. So this is still a shameful approach. Number or percentage in a region where we are so proud of having the highest rate of reserve of oil, but we have nothing toward serving the population of persons with disabilities and other vulnerable groups. So I think there is a need to address these issues. We are so hopeful that with the political transition and with the rising of persons with disabilities in countries like Egypt, Tunisia, Syria, Yemen, where we see persons with disabilities and their organizations are effectively involved with the political transition and people's rising in these countries to have their rights recognized in the new constitutional reforms in these countries. So I urge all organizations, U.S.-based organizations, particularly those who are involved somehow directly or indirectly with, usually when we talk about the U.S. Arab affairs, we mainly talk about aid and funding. So those who are helping the political transition in the Arab world not to only think of inclusion and accessibility as an only political issue. There is a tremendous need to focus on socioeconomic issues because when we see more inclusivity practiced toward vulnerable groups, we can have a rather safe and pluralistic society. Thank you very much. Thank you, Mohamed. And of course within this smorgasbord of issues that we are covering today, finally we get to Syria. So Syria and civil society has really been heavily overshadowed by the militarization of the conflict. I want to ask you, from your perspectives, what are the dynamics and role of civil society in Syria today? What is the state of civil society today in Syria? Okay. I'd actually like to start with a question. How many in this room have heard of the campaign, Stop the Killing, We Want to Build a Homeland for Orssyrians? Three people out of the entire room. The campaign started with an individual move by a young lady in front of the people's parliament wearing red and writing this phrase. And then it started to a big peaceful campaign for peace for all Syrians. If I'm going to ask the other question, how many have read about militarized developments in Syria? Almost the entire room. So practically the media is not interested in civil society, although most likely if there's going to be any political transition, proper transition based on notions of democracy, human rights, citizenship, it's most likely that the civil society will be called upon. So this deserves further focus. What's the civil society in Syria doing today? And the answer is they're doing extraordinary things. Possibly I don't have the time to give the background of civil society in Syria, why it's weak, why it's fragmented, why do we have a lot of fanatic groups coming in. But because there's not a lot of coverage by the media, I can tell you part of the thing civil society is doing. They're doing conflict resolution campaigns. They're holding lessons and schools for school students and this is counting the number that one official number says that one out of five students in Syria are out of school for the past two years and we can see the reflection on peace in Syria and in the region too. They're supporting health centers, they're becoming doctors and actually this is very risky in the country. They're offering legal services, treating the victims of rape because in any conflict usually it's the bodies of especially women are used as war tools. Raising awareness on how people can be sheltered. They're doing cultural events and that's very important. They're establishing local administration committees and councils. They're providing humanitarian aid. They're documenting abuses. They're fostering nonviolence. They're doing a lot of great things. In a time that the security situation is extremely bad, they can be detained for this and they can be detained for this from both conflicting sides by the way. People have been facing a lot of difficulties and still they're motivated and interested to work. How do they work? It's non-centered leadership. Circles of civil society activists work together. They use social media. They have trust circles and most important is dedication and motivation. However, a key element to that is most of them work illegally because by law civil society has been treated as an enemy previously. Even the legislation it has three key factors which is a lot of meddling with the establishing of civil society institutions. Although within the past decade from only a handful of civil society organization and charities around 900 were established. However, most of them were charities and they were more focused on providing charity. For instance, when the liberalization on the few subsidies came in 2007, civil society organization they rallied to lessen their repercussions rather than advocating against that policy that harmed a lot of people. So we can see that legal challenge with the Syrian civil society. Again, they cannot take funding because you can be imprisoned for taking funding, external funding. There's a lot of meddling not only with their establishing and licenses but in their operation as well. So a lot of donors need to take this into consideration. They cannot be registered. Another very big challenge is the sanctions. Sanctions usually they do not do that they might have some positive, their positive thought effects but on the civil society what's actually happened is civil society is not open to open back accounts and I'm not speaking it's in the US, it's in Europe, it's worldwide. Syrians in general they're being punished for being Syrian. So any bank, any money transfer to civil society organization is extremely troublesome. Another key challenge is the technical abilities because there was no development sector in the country. Previously there were a handful of NGOs that started in 2006, 2007 and of government NGOs. There was some technical capacities given to different development workers, however these are not many. So we need to take this technical ability aspect and the third thing despite their creativity and flexibility, one of the biggest challenges is actually they're not strategic. They're forced to be involved, to focus on the direct needs of the people on the humanitarian situation and to be less focused on a longer term vision and the situation is forcing that on civil society. So that's one of the biggest challenges for the civil society and I'll give you the ground. Excellent, thank you very much. At this point I'd like to turn to Nidal Batari who is joining us today from the floor. He is a member of the A&D delegation and to Nidal I'd like to address the question about the situation of Palestinians and Palestinian refugees living in Syria. Today we hear mostly about Syrian refugees but the situation facing the nearly 500,000 Palestinian refugees in Syria is particularly dire and worrisome. Many Palestinian families in Syria are facing secondary displacement forced to flee from their homes yet again, second time. So Nidal what are the conditions currently facing Palestinian refugees in Syria and also what is the situation of those forced to flee to neighboring countries and elsewhere? Thank you Joshua. Hi I'm Nidal Batari and actually I'm Syrian Palestinian you know and so I'm double refugee. Regarding the Syrian Palestinian refugees in Syria now there are about 500,000 Syrian Palestinian exist and spread in about 20 or 12 camps in Syria and the biggest one is in Damascus, it's Al-Yarmouk camp. Al-Yarmouk camp is now blockaded since about 7 months and the regime is not, is preventing to enter the assistant, the medical assistant, the relief to the camp. Okay this is not the question. The question is related to all the Palestinian case. What is the future of Palestinian refugees in this within the context of the Arab uprising? Now you know that the history of Palestinians they have in their memories, their memory in Lebanon and then in Iraq. You know now the Palestinian Iraqi refugees until now there is a camp between, in the borders between Syria and Iraq Al-Hul refugees, Al-Hul camp refugees until now there is no solution for them. They are stuck on the borders and they are really facing the risk of being killed because of the clashes between the regime and the rebels in Syria. The second point is what is the rule of Onorwa? Onorwa is, the mission of Onorwa is limited to just work and relief. So what about protection? Now when the Palestinian flee from Syria to neighborhood, already the only place which they can reach is Lebanon and recently the Lebanese government took a decision to prevent Syrian Palestinians to enter Lebanon. When they go to Lebanon, when they used to go to Lebanon for this decision, they tried to register but you know that Onorwa doesn't have a protection section. So it's important now to raise a demand that there should be a protection section for these refugees. Now they are, when they went to, they are going now to UNHCR which has a protection section. They said to them, we are not responsible that you are under the responsibility of Onorwa. So this is a problematic issues between Onorwa and UNHCR. And regarding the policies of the governments in the neighborhoods, you know that the Jordanian government refused to host any Syrian Palestinian refugee. And I remember that the deputy of Mr. Pankhamon Amos, she was in Jordan in Azatariqam and she could hear the sound of clashes between the regime and the rebels. When the Jordanian government on the borders were pushing back the Syrian Palestinian refugees and putting them under the risk of being killed because of these, the clashes between the rebels and the regime. So the third point is the refugees point is related to the negotiations between Israel and Palestine. What is the future? This is the key question for refugees. What is the future of the refugees, of the Palestinian refugees and these negotiations? Thank you Joshua. Thank you very much Nidal. At this point before I turn to the audience, I would like to start a broader discussion of civil society views toward U.S. policy specifically. And I think I will start on the economic angle. So Kinda, wondering if you can just present your views of the economic partnerships, the state of economic partnerships between Arab countries and the United States. Thank you. So it's good to start with the economics because many times the spaces for discussing the economic dimension of the relationship get lost when the emergencies such as Syria and the Palestinian negotiations, et cetera, are on the agenda. But from our perspective, the future of the region as well, including the sustainability of any political solution as well as any democratic practice in the region is also rooted in finding the right answers on the economic front. So this is why it is always important for us, even though we are finding less and lesser spaces to discuss this with policy makers in Congress, for example, et cetera, we still insist that this is an issue that needs to be highlighted from now and because it will shape the possibilities in the future. So on the economic front, there are several main areas where the U.S. and Arab countries engage. Trade and investment are very obvious. There is also the financial assistance and the development assistance, especially through U.S. aid. There is also the debt issues between U.S. and Arab countries, which took a certain kind of discussion in light of the 2011 revolutions but then was marginalized. And also there is the broader role of the United States in leading or in designing the role of the international financial institutions. So the representation of the United States inside institutions like the International Monetary Fund, inside institutions like the World Bank and in shaping their policies towards the region is also we perceive it as a very important front for discussion. I want to confine my notes to the issue of trade and investment and a little bit on the role within the international financial institutions. So basically in 2011, the United States initiated a step towards Arab countries under the title Trade and Investment Partnership Initiative. And this was an initiative which aims through enhancing trade and investment to support transitions in the Arab countries. And basically it had four main components to it. One is increasing the trade and investment integration between the U.S. and Arab countries. Second, to support the trade and investment integration among Arab countries themselves. Third, there was the track of working on pushing certain reforms for regulations and rules related to the area of trade and investment. And fourth was working on enhancing the cooperation between the U.S. and the European Union in regards to their trade and investment relations with Arab countries. These are the four main pillars of this initiative which was designed by the Obama Administration. And this initiative is now part of the U.S. program or what the U.S. presents under the broader G8 initiative towards the region which is named the Duveel Partnership because it was launched in the French city of Duveel. So the U.S. works on this alone but also under this broader G8 initiative called the Duveel Partnership. So the main question that is being asked here from centers and research centers that are discussing this issue and also back in the Arab countries is about the merits of this initiative and its ability to respond to the short-term and long-term needs that the Arab countries are facing. So basically to understand a little bit the role of trade and investment, we need to highlight a bit what are the challenges of the economies of the Arab countries. Arab countries have undergone since the 80s an open market policies and economic liberalization approach by they were very much engaged in liberalizing trade and also in entering into a lot of investment protection agreements globally. To give you an example, for example, Egypt has more than 100 bilateral investment treaties, among them one with the United States. Morocco and Tunisia has more than 50. So they are active. It's not that they have been conservative in terms of economic policy making. But what we have seen is that the way trade and investment policies have been used and the way other policies have been used including finance and production policies did not allow them to build economies that are growing and providing the employment needed in the region. And this is why we have been always saying that the economic challenge and the economic stress has been called to defining the revolutions. So just to give you the main things we consider when looking at the economies of our countries, we try to highlight that these economies have significantly lost their productive capacities, their ability to manufacture and export, their ability to engage their citizenship in employment in the manufacturing sector in agriculture and in highly skilled jobs in the services sector, for example. They lost that. They witnessed jobless growth. They were growing, but they were not able to create jobs. They witnessed regress in the ability to pay fair wages to the workers, what we call depression of wages or the regress of wages and income as a percentage of the global income of the production of the economy or the gross domestic product of the economy. So this reflects how the economy was being diverged away from serving the rights of the citizens because you are not giving them jobs, you are not giving them fair wages and towards concentration for the interests of the few. And we've seen a weakening and thinning of the middle class, and I think we all understand this phenomenon because also in the United States it is. And all of these are a reflection of the economic model that have built and a reflection of how the trade and investment relations that have been built with other countries was not able to serve the developmental needs and the gross needs of the economies. Why? Because we see that the liberalization process that was taken in the region was not taken at the right moment. Was taken at a moment when the economies were still trying to mature and were still trying to, and the economies were not able to respond to the global competition in a way that allows them dynamic integration in the global economy and integration in the global economies that allows them to continue growing on the contrary, they witnessed a depressive trend due to the immature and not timely liberalization that they took. This is overall our diagnosis of the situation with the use of trade and investment policies. This is why one of the core questions we put forward when we hear about initiatives such as the U.S. Trade and Investment Partnership Initiative towards the Arab countries is whether we will take this opportunity to assess how the U.S. trade and investment relations thus far have worked for the region and for the U.S. economy before jumping into further agreements and further liberalization, which is not necessarily built on well-studied ground and well-assessed grounds on how to link and how to design these agreements to suit and to address the developmental challenges in the region. Currently, if we look at the current status in 2011, the latest numbers we have, the relationship between the U.S. and Arab countries, less than 5% of the U.S. trade was with Arab countries, and less than 1% of the foreign direct investment coming from the United States to the world went to the Arab economies. This foreign direct investment was basically concentrating around 90% in the oil sector. So you can see that broadly, we were not able to use trade and investment in order to support diversification of the economies in the region. We were not able to use these relations in order to support more production in areas that can create employment and that can help integrate citizens in the economic cycles of their countries and thus can help in stabilizing the economies on a track of sustainable growth, sustainable employment generating growth. This is why we say that a better option than a quick and easy answer to this issue is to wait and see what will happen in the region and also use this waiting period to assess what is currently in place of trade and investment relations in the Arab countries. So use this time where the economies and the institutions of the Arab countries are still not stable enough, institutions are not yet in place, elections are not fully achieved. In order to assess the implications on economies, on developmental indicators, including wages, including production, including people's income and to try to build a dialogue around trade and investment which bring forward more voices from the direct stakeholders in this area. So unions for example, civil society organizations that work on economic policies and economic and social rights in the region and try to expand the scope of discussion from only governmental authorities and trade and investment authorities in the countries to also listen to the direct stakeholders that are workers in the industries that are being affected and also the businesses that are operating in the region, specifically the small and medium enterprises, which I think are a priority on the agenda of everyone. Just to note something, that there is enough declarations and there is enough declarations and good words in terms of supporting small and medium enterprises. You see it in all the reports. But when it comes to actually designing policies that work for small and medium enterprises and involving small and medium enterprises in the design of policies, we are very far from that. Because basically we still see that the trade and investment policies are designed based on the agenda of big business only. Unions and small and medium enterprises are not on the table and one priority on the way forward and if really we want to achieve the objective that we declare for this trade and investment partnership which is supporting the living standards of the people in the region and supporting the destabilization of the economies in the region, we need to take time to broaden the dialogue and broaden the stakeholders involved in the design of the new rules that will set in place new investment and trade relations between the two sides. Just to end, there is enough also alternatives if we want to think about supporting in the short term the economies of the region. Taking into consideration that often trade and investment agreements meaning new treaties that are designed as binding treaties and binding obligations under international law do not accrue benefits in the short term. These are treaties which their benefits and their implications negative or positive come to light in the medium term and in the longer term. But if we are thinking about economies of the region they need short term support and in terms of trade and investment there are several possibilities for the U.S. administration and officials to consider. One for example on the trade front is for example to expand the preferences that are provided for traders from the Arab countries for access to the U.S. market. There is a very strong system of preferences that the U.S. have designed for a lot of countries. Many Arab countries benefit as well from the generalized system of preferences that is in place. But there is possibilities for widening these preferences for traders from the Arab countries in the short term and for a temporary period. There is also on the investment front the possibility of promoting and guaranteeing the investments of the U.S. companies in the Arab markets and providing guarantees for U.S. companies would help them nurture more investments and also would help them go and take, be interpreting or take entrepreneurship steps in sectors which haven't been served by the foreign indirect investment which have been coming from the U.S. sectors which are more productive sectors and employment generating sectors. And here I want to just give a foot note that bilateral investment treaties which are usually used as the main tools to support investment because they are treaties that are focused on protecting the investor abroad have been showing a lot of problematics lately and I think there's an alive discussion inside the United States on the model of U.S. bilateral investment treaty that is designed by the U.S. administration because the problem in these treaties have been basically two-fold. One that they have focused on the protection of the investor only without also balancing that with responsibilities for the investor. So they have been abused in some sense and also they have been given, giving the investor a blanket right to take states to arbitration to sue the state basically under international commercial, I mean international arbitration and this investor state dispute settlement mechanism have been very problematic for a lot of states including developing countries and advanced countries. So an alternative would be here guaranteeing, giving guarantees to the U.S. investor and helping them access to the market, the Arab market in a protected and guaranteed way as well. Another also possibility of short-term support is to think more about the debt audit and the debt relief for the Arab countries and this is very important on both fronts. One, the debt relief itself which would give a lot of direct fiscal space for Arab countries to use their budgets more actively in addressing social and economic challenges in the region especially that some countries are paying more than 20% of their budgets allocating them to servicing debts not only the U.S. debts but other debts but also because the U.S. stands on debt audits and that relief is very important to attract other countries to do that and as well to help Arab countries to make the case with other advanced economies on the debt audit and the debt relief issues. So these are short-term alternatives that also we would like to see more discussed inside the policy making circles of the U.S. but also the more think tanks address these issues in DC and the more voice in the media around these issues is taking place the more these become possible policy responses that the authorities also take into consideration. Thank you. You know we in the U.S. are so preoccupied with the news of the day, the headlines regarding political violence and civil strife that we often lose sight of these broader contours of U.S. trade and economic relations with the Middle East. So thank you very much, Linda, for that discussion. Now I want to turn to Mehinoor. If we could just briefly describe or discuss Egyptian U.S. relations perhaps through this lens because with respect to Egypt we're so focused on democracy and U.S. foreign assistance and political violence that are we missing anything and if so what are we missing and how would you assess relations? Well I think we I will start from June 30th or maybe a day that is more highlighted in the U.S.-Egyptian relations is July 3rd. We see a lot of news agencies speaking about the Egyptian coup and then consequently we can understand or see the U.S. foreign relations in terms of issues like aid and so and how they are transforming or being questioned today just to preempt the question from the audience. Well I think that this direction is very problematic and has been making the U.S. administration lose a lot of popular support among the Egyptian average man or woman because it does not go back again to what happened before July 3rd for example. I mean July 3rd did not pop up into no context. I mean it was preceded by June 30th which was one year anniversary if that's the proper term to call it of the brotherhood power in Egypt which has seen economic and social policies that were contrary to the dreams and the hopes of the Egyptian people that took out to the street in 2011. So I think focusing on the politicization of June 3rd on being a coup or not a coup takes out what past governments have done to the dreams of the people and whether they have answered to them or not. In fact what we should also be looking at is part of what Kinda has more broadly alluded to is what economic and development approaches that not just the U.S. but other political and economic superpowers have been fostering in the region and in Egypt specifically. I mean very unpopular was the International Monetary Fund's approach to how to solve the economic crisis that has been going on in the last couple of years. So I think that this is a very international monetary funds approach to how to solve the economic crisis that has been framed as a reprecation of the revolution but has further roots back into the international crisis and the economic development that Kinda has spoken on how it went generally in the region. So for example it just pops to my mind how when Secretary of State John Kerry was in Egypt to speak on the political problems before June 30 was preceded. I mean everybody was saying that you know the people take out on the one University of Mosul in power if he does not start taking into consideration political as well as as well as economic inclusion of the people. There was John Kerry was in Egypt and he made it clearly how he thought it was important for Egypt to take on the IMF loan with its policy recommendations that further aggravate the economic and social disempowerment of the Egyptians. So these are issues that we need to take in mind. I mean I don't know how much the audience familiar with what IMF recommendations come with the loan but it's it's pretty much a quick fix to an economic crisis based on austerity measures and that has been and any social mitigation or safeguard to the effects of such policies on the people have been very hastily done and did not rely on sufficient data or understanding of the country or the regions. I mean we've heard from the World Bank which I mean one of the top contributors to either the World Bank or the IMF is the US and we need to think of the US role as a government and as treasury for example in those institutions. One of the ways to mitigate negative effects of institutions like the IMF policy recommendations was a social safety net equivalent of 240 Egyptian pounds cash transfers per person per year which is equivalent to nine pennies for each person per day. So these are policies that we need to look at when we think of US role in the region not just to look at the political front in the manner that it was that it was taken by. Thank you Mahinoor. Now right before I open it up to questions very briefly Mohamed and Rana wondering if each of you could touch on you know the issue of how the US can better assist civil society organizations in the Middle East. Rana if you could address the case of Syria of course and Mohamed if you could maybe discuss how USAID can be in other aid agencies how their role can be enhanced in bolstering civil society. Excellent. Answering this question make me borrow one thing from Akinda's excellent presentation about the look I mean when we look at the level of trade and investment through the Arab-American relations we see that this is mostly focusing on oil. Social inclusion has also an economic aspect both through the lens of investment as well as through the overall outcome on society. I think US foreign aid agencies including USAID and other ones should recognize the cost effectiveness of social inclusion for marginalized groups particularly persons with disabilities. This is a main perspective that we've developed through our experience at the Lebanese physical handicap union working with different stakeholders in the Lebanese society as well as in the region because when we ensure that one group of people that represents 15 to 20 percent of the population is not any longer considered as a burden but rather a partner and effective key player in the process of socioeconomic development I think we cannot disagree or and we cannot dispute anymore the effectiveness and the essentiality of inclusion and accessibility for this group of people. I think one of the major issues we've been experiencing is because and I'm not going to dwell into this because what I'm going to say now deserves extensive and comprehensive PhD dissertations which is the issue of supply and demand which we are focusing or concentrating concentrating our economic model on mostly. Unfortunately the US aid agencies have been pretty much inspired by the ongoing political changes in the region and this is why we see every year or every new term or cycle of funding the focus and the purpose as well as the objective strategic objectives of these programs change frequently. This is why although these programs insist that civil society organizations in the Arab world must identify ways for sustaining its development efforts and in the same time while we see these civil society organizations have no other sources but to rely on foreign aid programs I think this is a big problematic issue. We need to see a rather sustainable vision toward ensuring an inclusive socioeconomic policies funded by the US foreign aid agencies plus we need to see this is one of the things that we've experienced through our work as well both with different agencies from of the US like National Democratic Institute, International Foundation for Electoral System IFIS and IREX and other ones. Those who have encouraged our efforts toward maintaining and establishing effective partnership with other civil society stakeholders and building networks and alliances especially with private sector to make sure that every single entity within society is being engaged with promoting and adopting policies toward inclusion for marginalized groups at the social and economic level. The other thing is we need to see a rather interest to be inspired for or by the US foreign aid agencies toward enhancing an interregional collaboration and partnership between civil society organizations and I'm saying this based on one fact. Usually the attitude we get from US foreign aid agencies is that people in the region and their civil society representatives lack experience. This is why we need to give them training. We need to train them on how to become more transparent. We need to train them more on leadership. We need to train them more on options of organizational development. This is excellent but this is not everything. Civil society organizations have at least the most important experience and expertise regarding the context of the region. One of the main issues that we've been struggling with particularly with the World Bank is that the focus is always toward governments and this is why we refrain from or the World Bank refrain from imposing conditionalities on the lending programs. We're not disputing the issue of conditionality here. We're disputing the fact that at least there is a minimum standard for respecting human rights and inclusive development criteria to ensure that socioeconomic development policies are inclusive. The other thing is I would like to emphasize I know I'm speaking very fast and maybe my ideas are cutting short. We see double standards in the US foreign aid policy toward the region. While the US pushes civil society organizations in countries that experience the highest rate of poverty like Egypt, Yemen, northern African countries, Lebanon, Iraq, Syria, we see and push them to adopt policies toward inclusion and human rights and transparency. We don't see that being practiced toward countries that the United States concentrates its trade efforts towards like the Saudi Arabia Qatar and why is that? Why don't we see more transparency pushed toward these countries or within these countries? So we want to see more systematic and visionary policy by US foreign agencies toward enhancing a systematic and overall overarching regional and interregional approach toward inclusion and socioeconomic development. So I mean of course we can talk more during the Q&A session. Thank you very much. Thank you Mohamed. Rana? Actually Mohamed spoke my mind on the case of civil society and the need to support it but to add to that what's happening, the case that's happening with Syria is so now we have the government and we have the opposition to speak to and usually we mix the opposition for civil societies or they're usually seen as one chunk but this is not the case. Civil society is an entity on its own and it and the different other stakeholders they perceive their interests and their role differently. So we need to include civil society in peace talks. I mean chairs at negotiating tables should not be reserved exclusively to men with the weapons and we hardly see any civil society members in peace talks. We need to include it in all actually interventions. I know a lot of support, financial support is going and technical support is going to civil society but I've mentioned the issue of sanction and how it needs to be studied again to see how it's the negative impact it has on civil society and the work it's doing and how it's paving the way to more fanatic groups who have unlimited funding at time and they are, as in the case with the courts, they are being to have police on the grounds in the northern areas and they're more able to apply their own law rather than the civil courts. I mean they're even spreading their own ideologies. In Syria now we have around five curriculums of the different sides so you can see how fragmented things have become and simply because the civil and the civil society they do not have enough funds to work, conflict resolution trainings, they've taken the skills to work on their own projects, to work on their SMEs because people are hungry and often we're omitting that people need to work. We need to, even humanitarian aid it needs to be thought of in a more sustainable manner rather than just injecting amounts of money within the easiest, most accessible civil society groups on the borders or outside just to check that this project has been implemented. The other recommendation is violence is not the solution and I'm speaking of military violence and I'm speaking of economic violence. Any action must be viewed through the length of what could lead to a just and lasting peace and not to reiterate that again and again. Economically speaking I will not repeat what my colleagues just said about people did not go on the streets for security measures, they did not go out for the current IMF recipe, they've wanted more social and economic rights so those shock therapies are not the solution. Again the US can do a lot in terms of decreasing violence, they can stop the flow of weapons, they can start withdrawing support for armed actors and engaging other countries in the process, they can exert a lot of pressure on countries including civil society by itself is a very good strategy and last but not least I want to speak about the media focus, where the media is all focusing is on the army, is on the military, is on the fighting and hardly any mention of what civil society is doing on its own is ever taken into consideration although there are a lot of Syrian citizen journalists trying to reflect that to the world but media are not interested in buying these pieces of news from them, they're not interested in supporting that so again we need to push into wanting to hear more on what's being done. There are a lot of other interventions that can include safe havens, humanitarian corridors, establishment of war crimes tribunals just to name a few. Thank you Rana, because time is short I would like to open it up to the audience so in addition to stating your name and affiliation if you could please keep it to a brief question, thank you. In the front. Sorry for the microphone. Thank you. My question was for Kinda and I also wanted to open up to the rest of the audience, you spoke about different aspects of trade liberalization and all these different ways in which we could access the Middle East and so forth. One thing that I don't think you touched on too much but the other people did was the intersection of economics and military. Now in the case of Egypt trade liberalization, economic, IMF, every Washington consensus on down the line, even before June 30th and even before 2011, just simply reordered the patronage systems in a new way. I see that case in Syria as well with different situations. If economic situations shift, politics and the patronage, you know, there's a patronage politics shift. So my question is can you get into this a little more deeply and talk about the developmental challenges that civil society faces in the case of Egypt when you have a military that's not just firing bullets on the street but owns the economy. Effectively owns the bloated state structure and where does civil society fit into that? And I wanted to open that up to everybody else and to talk about their own specific cases because I know Syria is a different case and how civil society operates than in Egypt. Thank you. Thank you. Kinda, could you begin addressing? Now or we take a couple of questions. We could take a couple of more. Yeah, in the front. Good afternoon. My name is Rosemary Sekiro. I'm the president of Hope for Tomorrow. We focus on conflict resolution and violence prevention here in the district. I'm from Africa. I'm from Kenya. And I'm also a business woman and a tamperanua doing international business consulting. Looking at your speakers, I want to thank you so much because you are coming from the crossroads. That is where the advocacy needs to start. Because you understand the ground, you know what is happening and you have brought the message here in the United States. See me as a civil society, how do we work together? Because I've always participated in events like Egypt, marching, advocating White House and everywhere. But after that, you don't see anybody again. You don't see where everybody went. So how do we work together as civil society, past here in the U.S. and you on the ground over there? Because we need an embankment despite of where we come from. Violence is violence. Crime is crime. Terrorism as you hear is those are our children. We are who we are. So if we don't change that as civil society as mothers and others, so I just want to know how do we collaborate to work together from here to the White House, to the Congress and everywhere to make this, because if we don't voice a civil society, I just finished the World Bank, IMF and your meeting. I was there. We talk every year. Every time we talk, we're coming saying the same story. How do we make the impact of violence, conflicts, and investment because as he said, investment cannot be where there is war, where there is no peace. There has to be peace and resolutions for investment or businesses to be done. So how do we do that and make that happen? Thank you. Thank you. We'll take one more question in the back. Yes, yes. I'm Helen Ruffel with Resources for the Future. Apart from petroleum products, what specific economic sectors would have comparative advantage so that if we helped with investment, they would be competitive in the world market with, for example, products from China that are spreading all over the world. Where are the products? The specific sectors. You talked about economic sectors, but you didn't name any. The specific sectors would be particularly advantageous for the Arab countries to invest in. Thank you. I think, Kinda, you're well placed to address the questions on the intersection between the economies and the military and also perhaps the comparative advantages of economic sectors. Thank you. Thanks for all your questions. I am not sure I am the best person to comment on the economy of the military, but what I can definitely agree with you is what we have seen post the revolutions in the region was a focus on re-stabilizing the same economic models that were designed under the ousted regimes. This was one of the biggest tasks for the interest groups in these countries, but also one of the biggest tasks for the international financial institutions, as Mahinoor mentioned, and also the partners of the region, the economic partners including the United States and the European Union. There could be several different reasons why each party have opted out for prioritizing re-stabilizing and not actually creating the possibility of redesigning the economic model. But definitely what you have seen is that the focus of the global narrative in regards to the region was that the problem of the economic decay was not in the economic policies themselves, but the problem was that they were implemented in a context which was lacking democratic governance and fueled by corruption. This was the diagnosis, but according to us, this is a very... This diagnosis fails to capture the full picture. The full picture is yes, because lack of democratic governance and fueled corruption, but the biggest problem as well was that the economic choices themselves that were made didn't fit the developmental context in the region, and this is why our biggest challenge now as civil society groups in the region is to secure the space for discussing the economic policies themselves and not only the implementation of economic policies that have been desired previously, and this is why when Mahinur mentioned that there was a popular uprising against the IMF negotiations in Egypt, it is because the IMF's recipe is the same recipe that they came with to the Mubarak regime and to the other regimes, and we have several papers that have monitored the kind of policy advice that came to the region from international financial institutions from before the global crisis 2008 and through 2010 and post the revolutions 2011 and they are still the same. But I agree with you that the economies in the region need a structural shift and transformation in the way the economies are built in the role of the state, the role of the private sector, the role of the local private sector and the role of the foreign private sector, the relationship of the state with the private sector through public-private partnerships, etc. These are all big questions that needs to be addressed in the region but what we are calling for is to avoid the easy answers which are always that the problem is in the role of the state solution is with the private sector. No, because we see that we need much more dynamic answers because we had these implemented before. We have distrusted the state fully and we have overthrusted in the role of the private sector and we had failed economies that took us to the revolution. What we need now, we need to call for enough policy space in order for the state to play a dynamic role in allowing for an active role of the private sector in also nurturing a space for national private sector to grow and also to build partnership with the foreign private sector not to be eaten by the foreign private sector and to be swallowed. All these questions are up in the air but I think the question on the role of the military and the economy of the military in Egypt is very specific to Egypt. I hope Mahineur can give you more answers but within a broader structure transformation of the economy of Egypt definitely the role of the military on this front will also be changed. In terms of economy specific sectors I think it is worthwhile giving it another space also for discussion and also involving voices from the business community and from the producers communities in the region but definitely I tell you the investment policies in the agricultural sector needs to change. This is one of the biggest sectors in the region. It is one of the sectors that have been marginalized in terms of investment but when investment comes to it it comes under the umbrella of a land grabbing policy which not necessarily allows for constructive policy that nurtures the small and medium farmers and nurtures the economic and social rights of these communities. We need to have a discussion on this but also as well the other productive and manufacturing capacities in the Arab region is very important. Thank you. Mehinoor if you could expand on that theme as well and unfortunately I think your comments will be the last because we are running out of time. Thank you. I'll pick on that and I'll also pick on the point of common work within civil societies in different regions of the world that suffer similar economic and social deprivations or policies that don't work for the rest of the people. Well just on economy and militarization it is true that the Egyptian army plays a a wide role in the economy in Egypt. There is a need for more discussion and more transparency for example on military budgets which it has would go into a whole discussion of when how and why the Egyptian army has gone into to become an economic enterprise largely and what does it have to do with the peace process and Israeli-Egyptian peace process and what not but not just that. This is a question and also another question is the role of the prominent private sector players in the Egyptian economy and its relationship with the elite sector of power needs to be questioned and also openness towards seeing who was doing business in Egypt, who was successful on which terms and what did this do to stealing the resources and the riches of the people and how Egypt became or reached this level of economic and social degradation over the years and I mean just a quick example I'm not sure really how after a popular revolution with those economic and social underlines we still see international financial institutions international development banks like for example the World Bank and the IMF that just had their annuals doing business with tax evaders up until today and we see Egyptian partners being closely tied to the past circles of power we see doing business with somebody like AFG, MS, Egypt for example which is largely a mubarak business anyhow so on common work you're right we need to pick up I just want to introduce you to something that we're doing actually with TGNA network Africa we tackle issues like tax justice like for example issues with tax havens and reforming a tax system in a way that that fosters a just redistribution of wealth we work with tax justice network Africa for example based in Kenya I hear a question on entry points as well I think we should be lobbying international financial institutions like here in DC and in their headquarters to adopt anti-corruption measures to adopt social policies like what Muhammad Ludfi is working on with revising safeguards of World Bank operations on disability issues for example we need to be lobbying governments because institutions like the World Bank they are financial institutions but they are public institutions and everyone should be asking before the Congress approves for a budget for those institutions what economic and social human rights safeguards does the policies of those institutions have and we should be of course forming pressure groups at home as well but also on those different fronts thank you very much Mahinor and thanks to all of our panelists Andy Dahl it's not often that we're able to bring together such a diverse group of civil society representatives so we're very thankful thank you