A two day workshop was held in
Beirut to discuss and formulate two codes of conduct; one for CSOs
and another for political parties in the Arab World. The workshop
was attended by approximately 25 participants from Lebanon, Syria,
Tunisia, Jordan, Egypt and Palestine, in addition to organizers from
the Friedrich Naumann Foudation (FN).
Four participants from
Palestine attended the meeting, although five were invited. These
are: Dr. Azmi Shuaibi, AMAN’s Commissioner for Combating Coruption,
and Jamileh Abed, Coordinator of the Project at Aman; Dr. Allam
Jarar, Representative-Palestinian NGO network (PNGO) and Dr. Najat
Abu-Bakr- representative for Fateh. Unfortunately, Dr. Adnan
Abu-Amer, from Gaza was not able to attend due to border closure by
the Israelis.
It is worthy to note that the
preliminary version of the political charter was drafted by Dr. Azmi
Shuaibi and Dr. Jamal Barout from Syria. The draft charter provided
a description of the current political situation as it relates to
the formation and practices of political parties in the Arab World
emphasizing the need to have a Code of Ethics that will serve a
guide for democratic practices. At the end of the two day meeting,
a second version of the charter was drafted based on the
recommendations of the participants, which will later be circulated
regionally to the related parties for feed back and approval.
Similarly, a draft copy of the CoC for CSOs was also written based
on the Palestinian Code of Conduct for NGOs. The Code embodied good
governance principles for NGOs with emphasis on transparency and
accountability at work. It also provided guidelines to avoid
conflict of interest in addition to other ethical practices. The
draft modified code will also be sent to CSOs in the related
countries for feedback and approval as well.
Further follow-up and
utilizing of the documents include activities such as training and
meetings which will be conducted later this year.
