How Could America Support Public Participation in the Arab Countries?

** The Second Scenario

By Qais Jamal AlKhalafat

At first glance, the reader might think that I am inviting America to interfere in the Arab countries’ internal affairs when I call its support to the public participation in the Arab countries; when in fact I do not call for this at all, as my call aims to provide moral support in the first stage, then technical support in the second stage which America can provide through co-funded American and International cooperation organizations through sustainable development and public participation programs in the Arab countries.

The level of public participation in the Arab countries in the field of decision taking is limited to parliamentary work within one specific role which is control on government performance and legislation. Since all categories and segments of the Arab people express their non-confidence in the integrity of parliamentary and municipal elections, and due to the widening gap between the Arab people and their governments, Arabs carry a sense of doubt, uncertainty, and weakness of conviction in the decisions taken and policies followed by those governments, which made the economic and social impact of the overall political and economic reforms insufficient to bridge the gap of non-confidence. Therefore, all development programs and projects implemented by the Arab governments in cooperation with other countries, and international and regional donor organizations became intangible in a positive clear manner on the sustainable local development level.

Since governments in Arab countries are not elected and face a great deal of criticism regarding the lack of clarity in their members’ selection criteria, and with the ongoing “Arab Spring”, the participants in public revolts became unconvinced with the performance of their governments and the level of people’s participation in decision taking. Therefore, they started to call for more participation and representation to guarantee the elimination of the intended and unintended marginalization policies practiced by some governments in the Arab region.

Throughout my experiences as a researcher in the field of human development in an Arab country which is Jordan, I have managed to analyze and evaluate the reality of public participation in the field of decision taking in the Arab countries which I found insufficient – even though each country has a fair and freely elected parliament representing public segments- since insufficiency in my point of view comes from the regression of the role assigned to the Arab parliaments as I have mentioned earlier, since its role is a control-legislation role, while the Arab youth is looking forward to a wider scope of participation, they are anxious to participate in decision taking and governmental policy-taking on the level of each ministry comprising the body of the government.

Through this article, I call the American organizations concerned in supporting the development efforts in the Arab countries to adapt a new development initiative which I call “Decision Support Councils (DSC’s)”. The main idea for this initiative is to form a council in each ministry in every Arab country that includes in its membership: 20% of the members representing ministry’s partners, national non-governmental organizations, civil society organizations concerned in the ministry’s scope of work, and organizations related to the ministry, 20% representing experts, consultants, and trainers who are technically and managerially experienced in the ministry’s scope of work, 20% representing women working and interested in the ministry’s scope of work to achieve gender criterion, 10% representing former Ministers of the ministry within interval time periods and some of the retired senior employees of the ministry, 10% representing local community leaders, 10% representing talented entrepreneur youth who’s participation in the council could benefit in generating innovative ideas that support and develop the ministry’s role in public work, and 10% of members representing various media channels (TV channels, radio stations, newspapers, news websites).

DSC’s participation in sensing the development needs, planning, decision making, and policy-making is an involvement in the consultative status taken by DSC’s majority where it is concerned in providing consultancies, advice, and suggestions to decision takers (the ministers) when needed, in addition to its role in supporting the internal planning and coordination committees in each ministry. These councils combined could play a double role in the future where the results of their work are benefited from in providing feedback to the national policies councils in Arab countries, in addition to supporting technical committees in parliaments.

I found it necessary that this initiative comes from America as it is the first outside patron of international development and cooperation programs in the Arab countries, and since America will fund the DSC’s establishment and training program, this would leave no room for Arab governments to refuse accepting this initiative due to poor self-finance. Moreover, calling for this initiative by public organizations inside Arab countries will not find the expected reception from governments due to its desire to maintain balance in the relation between the government and the people for security purposes.

America’s standing up for this initiative will mean that it is seriously concerned about what is currently happening in the Middle East, and with that it would have contributed to changing the prevailing trend in the minds of the Arabs which implies that “America has turned its back on the Middle East”.

Dr. Qais Jamal AlKhalafat
Human Development Consultant- Jordan