Al-Khalij Women's Campaign Initiative

Released by the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs
April 20, 2004

Event
The al-Khalij Women’s Campaign Initiative is the first in a series of leadership and campaign schools sponsored by the Middle East Partnership Initiative and implemented by Partners in Participation, providing leadership and communication skills to current and future women leaders in the Arab world.

Participants
Sixty women participated, including public officials, former and future candidates, civil society leaders and activists from Bahrain, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar, the United Arab Emirates and Yemen.

Trainers
Trainers comprised fifteen high-level experts from Canada, the United States, Jordan, Morocco and Lebanon.

Agenda
Four days of intensive interactive training in campaign basics: campaign planning, message development, outreach and media skills, enhanced by individual image and media/presentation consultations. Speaker and panel discussions complement conference workshops by providing case studies that participants can apply when developing solutions to some of their own unique challenges in workshop exercises.

Location
Doha, Qatar.

Dates
February 14-18, 2004.

Hosts
The Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI) is a Presidential Initiative, announced by U.S. Secretary of State Colin Powell on December 12, 2002, to support economic, political, and educational reform efforts in the Middle East and champion opportunity for all people of the region, especially women and youth. Partners in Participation is organized by the National Democratic Institute (NDI) and the International Republican Institute (IRI), both independent non-governmental organizations headquartered in Washington DC.

Accomplishments
Recognizing that campaigns are won not only in a flashpoint event like an election, Partners in Participation instilled core skills for successful electoral and advocacy campaigns that can be conducted over entire electoral cycles. Participants successfully completed a structured series of workshops intended to impart of the discipline of campaigns, based upon scientifically proven principles that may be applied across all types of campaigns.

MEPI
The Middle East Partnership Initiative is a Presidential initiative founded to support economic, political, and educational reform efforts in the Middle East and champion opportunity for all people of the region, especially women and youth. The Initiative strives to link Arab, U.S., and global private sector businesses, non-governmental organizations, civil society elements, and governments together to develop innovative policies and programs that support reform in the region. As the President outlined in his Nov. 6, 2003 speech at the National Endowment for Democracy, the U.S. has adopted a new policy, a forward strategy of freedom in the Middle East. MEPI is the administration's primary diplomatic policy and development mechanism to support this new U.S. policy.

MEPI is structured in four reform areas. In the economic pillar, MEPI policy and programs support region-wide economic and employment growth driven by private sector expansion and entrepreneurship. In the political pillar, MEPI champions an expanded public space where democratic voices can be heard in the political process, where the people have a choice in governance, and where there is respect for the rule of law. In the education pillar, MEPI supports education systems that enable all people, including girls, to acquire the knowledge and skills necessary to compete in today's economy and improve the quality of their lives. Finally, in the women's pillar, MEPI works toward economic, political, and educational systems where women enjoy full and equal opportunities.

Among the hallmark activities being conducted under the auspices of MEPI are the development of a Middle East Finance Corporation (economic pillar); a Regional Judicial Forum and Regional Campaign Schools (political pillar); "Partnership Schools" that offer creative, innovative alternatives for quality and relevant education for children and serve as models for governments as they build schools in the future (education pillar); and regional business internships for women (women's pillar).

For more information on MEPI please see our website at www.mepi.state.gov.

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