Improving Electoral Standards in Lebanon

While Lebanon is one of the few Arab states to hold competitive elections, the electoral system is suffering from serious flaws. The Lebanese Association for Democratic Elections (LADE) has been monitoring elections and fighting electoral fraud since it was established in 1996. In 2005, LADE was one of the initiators of a broad coalition of civil society organizations pushing for a more representative and fairer electoral law.

Iraqi Civil Society – Pushing for Change

This project seeks to support Iraqi civil society activists who strive to initiate an authentic, self-determined process of democratization based on the principles of equal citizenship rights regardless of ethnic or confessional affiliation, full participation of women and a civic culture of democratic interaction on the grassroots level. Contributing to the build-up of an active and professional civil society, responsible and reliable media, and the rehabilitation of the population from experiences of physical and psychological violence are crucial objectives of this effort.

Building Platforms for Intellectual and Cultural Practice

Inter-Arab cultural endeavors, encounters and networks that equally constitute bridges to the international cultural scene and experience are mostly in an infant stage, lacking a solid infrastructure and continuity. At the same time, non-mainstream, non-commercial works by artists and intellectuals from the region depicting socio-economic and political issues using an un-blurred lens rarely find an outlet. Ashkal Alwan is a non-profit Lebanese association attempting to counterweigh these deficiencies.

It is dedicated to critical intellectual and artistic reflections and presentations of social, political, economic and cultural realities in the region that question pre-established patterns and beliefs. Through “Home Works”, an annual multidisciplinary international public forum implemented by the association, Ashkal Alwan promotes an intra- and intercultural dialogue and exchange and offers independent, non-conventional, and new voices an infrastructure of space and resources to gain visibility and insight into counterparts’ experiences and work regionally and internationally. The residency programs it offers to local, regional and international artists is a project that feeds the same goals.

Cinemayat – Cinema for Life

Official coverage of the 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon and its aftermath was dominated by inventories of destruction and death. Work by numerous film-makers, artists, journalists, activists, and volunteers focusing rather on people's attempts to maintain life and devise informal strategies of survival did not find many channels for expression and visibility.

Cinemayat aims to establish an archive and a virtual platform for the documentation and presentation of everyday lived experience in war as illustrated by films, videos, photography, and texts produced on the experiences of the village of Aita Al-Shaeb, located directly on the Israeli-Lebanese border. Amateur film-makers and volunteers from the village are trained in archiving and film editing, including digitizing and logging available footage.

Rural Bus - Mobile Agricultural Training Center for South Lebanon

Rural Lebanon has been underserved since the country’s creation. The latest war has aggravated the situation, especially in the South. Beyond relief efforts, people from the war-affected areas require longer term support in the development of local social and economic sectors to return to the area. Agriculture, the backbone of the local economy, suffers from a plethora of problems along the economic supply chain: problems of access to land and resources, problems of financing, problems in the production systems, and problems in marketing.

To help redress these deficiencies, the Task Force for Reconstruction and Development at the Interfaculty Graduate Environmental Sciences Program (IGESP) of the American University of Beirut (AUB) created and operates a mobile rural community development center, the Rural Bus. Through its mobile character, services such as agricultural extension advice, IT training, small business development services, assistance in applying for microfinance, as well as socio-cultural activities, can be spread over a wider geographical area and reach a considerably higher number of people than a stationary service. Thus cross-fertilization and exchange of information and experience are enhanced.

Bada'el Environmental Magazine

The quarterly "Bada'el" (Arabic for "Alternatives") is the Arabic version of the English-language magazine The Ecologist. While translating some of the content of its parent magazine into Arabic, Bada'el determines the theme focus of individual issues independently and according to the priorities of the region. Hence, it also commissions and solicits contributions from Arab and foreign authors and thus establishes a platform for exchange of knowledge and opinion on ecological themes related to the Arab world.

Since 2005, hbf has supported several editions of Bade'el that focused on issues related to the program line "Sustainable Development": "Anti-Globalization" (2005), "Trade and Agriculture" (2006) and "Renewable Energy" (2007).

Women's Right to Nationality

Throughout most countries in the Middle East, women married to foreigners are denied the right to pass on their nationality to their foreign spouses and their children, while men mostly enjoy these rights by default. The result is not only symbolic denigration of women's value and standing as citizens, but also social hardship, as children of foreign fathers are often denied access to public schools, services and employment in the country of the mother, and may end up without any nationality at all if the father abandons the family.

Since 2004, the Collective for Research and Training on Development Action (CRTD.A) has been campaigning for equal nationality rights for women as part of a civil society coalition covering several Arab countries. Relevant laws have been modified in Algeria, Egypt and Morocco, creating a momentum for change that CRTD.A is working to maintain and build upon to  strengthen the regional network, increase pressure in other countries, and to extend these networks of cooperation to tackle other gender-related issues.

Zawaya

Zawaya is a periodical publication on alternative and emerging cultural and intellectual production in the Arab world.  Produced in Beirut, its contributors as well as its readership are located throughout the Arab region, spanning from the Gulf to North Africa.

Zawaya was created in order to provide a much-needed platform within the region’s cultural sphere and intellectual circles for alternative approaches to and expressions of contemporary issues via various media forms, including the visual and plastic arts, performing arts, cinema, video, poetry and literature.

Central to Zawaya’s mission is bridging the inter-Arab gap of connectivity and exchange by encouraging networks and cooperation between different Arab voices and creating a pluralistic space that informs the public about contemporary alternative cultural practices in the Arab world.

Public Libraries as Social Spaces

Lebanon is witness to a striking lack of public spaces for information and learning, accessible to all groups of society, regardless of gender, age and confessional or ethnic affiliation. Assabil – Friends of Public Libraries was established in 1997 to proactively address this lack. It regards public libraries as local gateways to participation through life-long learning and information.

Promoting Renewable Energies in Lebanon