The Coalition for Accountability for Accountability and Integrity AMAN Held its inaugural meeting in Gaza for the Civil Society Team to enhance monitoring over antiquities in cooperation with many human rights organizations, culture, media, antiquities protection, heritage and many specialized academics, and researchers in the antiquities field, to raise the citizens awareness and engagement in the fight against corruption, and accountability over the public performance, especially in the antiquities protection, as it is considered one of the most natural resources and endowments in connection with the public money unifying efforts to protect and monitor their management.
The role of the Civil Society Team consists of enhancing the values of integrity, principles of transparency and accountability systems in the official bodies which manage and supervise the antiquities and heritage, in particular the Ministry of Tourism and the Ministry of Culture, through the implementation of participatory activities with partners from the Civil Society Team members consisting in raising the awareness of the citizens and empowering organizations in using accountability tools on one hand, and advocating citizens in hope of protecting antiquities and to put pressure on official bodies on the other hand.
In his opening statement, Mr. Isam Younis, AMAN Board of Directors member, emphasized the need to form this team in the current period as a positive and important step to preserve the public money and the historical Palestinian heritage from being wasted, similar to what has happened at the Al-Sakan Archaeolgical Hill site, pointing out that the most important pillars of protecting public money and antiquities consists of unifying efforts and partnerships to involve all relevant parties to help enhance advocacy and accountability over decision makers to protect antiquities.
Wael Baloushe, Office Director of AMAN Coalition in Gaza expressed the importance of monitoring over the sector of antiquities and heritage in general, which is considered a developmental extension of the local economy and a witness over the long history of the originality of Palestine rich in cultural heritage.
Mrs. Marwa Abu Odeh, Advocacy and Accountability Coordinator in Gaza, reviewed the idea of the formation of the Civil Society Team according to results of a previous discussion workshop executed over the archaeological Al-Sakan Hill erosion, emphasizing that weak monitoring by official authorities leads to public money waste, and may cause suspicions of corruption in its management, which caught the attention of AMAN Coalition to form a civil society team to enhance the control of the protection of antiquities to partner a number of relevant organizations in adopting accountability and monitoring tools to protect antiquities.
