A workshop titled “Young Leaders in Democratic Governance in the MENA region” was held in Venice, Italy from 25 to 30 May 2008. This event was jointly organized by International IDEA and the European Inter-University Centre for Human Rights and Democratization (EIUC) with the support of the Al Kawakibi Centre for Democratic Reform, Jordan, and the Arab Democracy Foundation, Qatar.
22 young graduates of the Arab region, with different educational background, participated in the workshop. Participants came from 12 different countries: Algeria, Morocco, Jordan, Yemen, Palestine, Tunisia, Syria, Lebanon, Egypt, Saudi Arabia, Bahrain and Iraq.
Subject areas covered included:
- the basic principles of democracy;
- constitution building;
- political pluralism;
- human rights and democracy;
- local administration and democratic governance;
- democracy from a historical perspective;
- transitional justice and institution building in post-conflict societies;
- democratic elections;
- women and democracy; and
- democracy and development.
Key speakers at the workshop included the Secretary-General of EIUC, George Ulrich; the President of the European Master in Human Rights and Democratization, Anja Mir; the Director of the Centre for Human Rights of Padua University Antonio Papisca, the Secretary-General of the international ONG No Peace without Justice, Niccolò Figà Talamanca; the Director of the international policy department of TESEV, Turkey, Sanem Guner; the Director of the Center of Arab Women for Training and Research (CAWTAR), Tunisia, Soukeyna Bouraoui; and International IDEA’s own expert staff. In addition, Saad Eddine Ibrahim, President of Ibn Kaldhoum Center, Cairo, and member of the Board of the Arab Democracy Foundation, spoke on “the challenges to democracy in the MENA region”.
The group of young leaders participated actively in each workshop presentation. They expressed their gratitude to International IDEA for organizing such an event on the topic of democratic governance.
