Gender & Citizenship Initiative in the Arab Region - Phase II

The Gender and Citizenship Initiative (GCI) has launched its second phase in 2006. The main objectives of the Initiative are:

• to support research-informed policy debate and dialogue on women's citizenship in selected countries in the Arab region,
• to raise public and media awareness about the scale and implications of gender inequalities inherent in key legislation,
• to build the capacity of Arab women's NGOs in networking and advocacy to lobby for policy changes, and
• to build partnerships between women's NGOs and parliamentarians
• launch regional and country based policy dialogues with key decision makers and stakeholders
• identify and address country-based challenges which may obstruct legal reforms
• raise public awareness on nationality as a case in point for engendering citizenship in the Arab world
  
• launch country specific legal reform initiatives related to Arab nationality Laws
A midterm validation and review meeting was held in Bahrain, on 10-11 January 2007.

Activities in 2007 will include:

• Proposals for legal reforms of nationality laws;
• Production of country fact sheets that can be used for communication and awareness raising;
• Expanding the scope of assessment and action-research to new countries where potentials for mobilizing local partners, and
• Launching breakthrough campaigning and advocacy work is quickly materializing. These include the Gulf region Kuwait, Oman and Saudi Arabia.
• GCI activities are expected to terminate by holding a review meeting in the month of May 2007 (tentative date).