Why is innovation needed?
While the number of countries amending their laws to limit the work of CSOs is increasing in the MENA region, collaboration between CSOs, activists, technologists, and legal advocates is becoming the key that could open the closed doors in innovative and legal ways. In fact, as a response to multiple obstacles and challenges affecting civil society, and restrictions on civil society organizations, a global network named Innovation for Change (I4C) was established in different regions of the Planet. I4C gathers individuals, entities and organizations willing to connect, collaborate and learn together to strengthen the civic space and to overcome restrictions threatening the freedoms of assembly, association, and speech.
I4C exists over several regions. In fact, I4C comprises 6 networked Innovation Hubs across Africa, Central Asia, East Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, the Middle East and North Africa, and South Asia.
Each hub organizes and launches its own initiatives through an integrated approach in order to co-create and deliver services that will also help the other regions.
I4C MENA Hub
The MENA Hub will provide innovative solutions and implement partnerships to put into practice Arabic-language innovations about digital security, campaigning and knowledge sharing to strengthen and defend the civic space of the region. Moreover, the members will develop partnership models between CSOs and different stakeholders focusing on sustainability. The main addressed Sustainable Development Goals are:
Goal 5: Gender Equality
Goal 10: Reduced Inequalities
Goal 16: Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions
The launch of the MENA Hub
As previously mentioned, the MENA Hub is one of six hubs across the global south in the I4C network. The Helper Hub, comprised of Counterpart and CIVICUS is responsible of the direct technical support while TIDES is the fiscal agent. The Helper Hub will assist the regional hubs to become self-sufficient.
The launch of the I4C MENA Hub was held in Tunis between the 18th and 20th of July 2018.
In parallel to the launch event that took place on the 19th of July, many knowledge/experiences sharing took place, training and capacity building sessions were organized, and policy papers were issued at the end of the event. Based on the different workshops and discussions, the main subjects that need to be treated with high importance and that shall be considered as a priority nowadays in the region are:
- Accountability and Transparency: The aim of this subject is to create tools that allow citizens to become more involved in the decision-making processes on the local level.
- Advocacy and Campaigning: The aim of this subject is to develop an advocacy train the trainer network in order to assist with campaigns in the region.
- Digital Security: The aim of this subject is to provide trainings on digital privacy and censorship circumvention tools for activists throughout the network.
- Global Partnerships: The aim of this subject is to build a network that will act as a coordination point with other regional hubs on issues such as advocacy, legal assistance to human rights defenders and digital security.
- Innovation Pipeline: The aim of this subject is to facilitate local discussions among activists, technologists, and entrepreneurs to pilot and scale up new approaches that improve the current state of civil society in the region.
- Knowledge Sharing: The aim of this subject is to extend the use of the online platform to exchange services among CSOs within the same region and between different regions.
- Research and Development: The aim of this subject is to use applied research to understand the potential for access and usage of digital money to increase civil society sustainability.
- Integration of the Youth: The aim of this subject is to empower youth and integrate them on the political level and on the volunteering level. This cannot be achieved without raising the sense of local and global citizenship.
