Information Note on the 2009 Forum for the Future

Information Note on the 2009 Forum for the Future

Italy and Morocco are honoured to inform the BMENA, G8 and other Partner Countries as well as international organizations and civil society partners on the preparation of the sixth Forum for the Future to be held in Morocco on 2 and 3 November 2009.

Following the announcement at the Abu Dhabi Forum for the Future (18-19 October 2008), the Italian and Moroccan co-chairs started preparatory consultations with parties involved in the Forum for the Future from both the government and civil society sides. In this process the two civil society representatives, Organisation Marocaine des Droits Humains (OMDH) and No Peace Without Justice (NPWJ), were given the responsibility to coordinate the participation of the civil society.

The aim of these consultations was to come to an understanding on the policy priorities for the year 2009 and to reach a decision on the organisational modalities (themes, dates and the calendars of the activities programmed for the 2009 FfF).

It has been underlined that the success of the Ministerial meeting of the 2009 FfF will be primarily due to the participation of all the concerned countries (at a Ministerial level) and to its project-based approach. It has been equally recognized the essential contribution of women and youth in political, economic and social development as well as the importance of further encouraging them in particular to participate in all activities taking place in the framework of the FfF.

The Italian and the Moroccan co-chairs underline the opportunity to undertake an evaluation work of our Partnership by engaging in a critical and open assessment of the various initiatives launched since its inception aiming at adapting and improving it, by reinforcing our gains and bringing changes where necessary.

With this in mind, the 2009 Forum for the Future hopes to provide a setting for an informal, flexible, open and inclusive dialogue, devoted to strengthening the initially set principles.

Further to preparatory consultations, the Italian and the Moroccan co-chairs have set up the following calendar of events, on the basis of the policy priorities agreed for the Fff.

Calendar of Events:

The 2009 FfF foresees to reconfirm and reinforce the traditional two segments: the Ministerial Meeting scheduled on November 2 and 3 2009 in Marrakesh -Morocco- and a Sub-Ministerial meeting, to be held in Rome - Italy- on October 23. The Sub-Ministerial meeting will be aimed at finalizing the agenda and the documents for the Ministerial Meeting in Morocco.

The Forum for the Future will be fed by three thematic interrelated workshops aimed at widening the space for discussion and reflection between government and civil society representatives on the selected themes for thisyear's Forum for the Future.

Conceptual and policy priorities:

The agreed policy priorities for the FfF will be addressed by the three workshops as follows:

1 workshop on: "the impact of the international financial crisis on the BMENA region", to be held in Beirut (Lebanon) on 26th and 27th September 2009. NPWJ will prepare alongside the Lebanese partner-NGOs, the concept and background paper to detail the organizational and technical modalities. The Beirut workshop will focus on the challenges which the region has to face in the current systemic economic and financial crisis and the role of governments, civil society and the private sector in addressing them. The workshop aims at discussing those issues related to the role of the corporate social responsibility, transparency and private sector in addressing social justice, unemployment and poverty as well as at discussing strategies which could enable broader development in the region, in the light of the outcomes of the UN conference on the world economic and financial crisis. The discussion will aim at elaborating and proposing new tools and instruments that can help in renewing the linkages between political, economic and social rights-based reform strategies and reinforcing a democratic and open environment for the benefit of the whole society.

1 workshop on:"political reforms and local governance", to be held in Rabat (Morocco) on 5th and 6th October 2009. OMDH and Morocco, as co-chair, will prepare the concept and background paper to detail the organisational and technical modalities. The purpose of the Rabat Workshop is to assess issues and initiatives relating to the development of local government in countries of the BMENA region. The workshop will particularly focus on addressing the status and issues of 'local administrations, and local branches and units of central governments and will aim to analyse and discuss the capacity of local governments to run their affairs and explore the relationship between local administrations and local constituencies.

1 workshop on: "human development and human security", to be held in Qatar between 10 and 14 October 2009 (date tbc). The Arab Democracy Foundation (ADF), as a partner NGO, will take the lead in preparing the concept and background paper.

Invitations to the activities:

The objective of having three regional workshops is to discuss themes of mutual interest by governments and civil society representatives. The Italian and the Moroccan co-chairs invite the Countries participating in the G8-BMENA initiative to participate actively in these workshops as they will feed the parallel civil society forum, the sub-ministerial and the ministerial meetings.

Each participating Government will take charge of the costs of its own delegation to the aforesaid events.