Regional Programme for the Middle East and North Africa

Regional Programme for the Middle East and North Africa

Sida’s Regional Programme in the region started in 2003 and is administered by the Sida office in the Embassy of Sweden in Cairo.

The main objectives of Sida in the MENA* region are to promote:

• Democracy and good governance, e.g. by taking steps to promote the emergence of a strong civil society.
  
  
• Respect for human rights, including equal rights, conditions and opportunities for women and girls, and to encourage the development both of regional networks and of structures for dialogue on rights perspectives and basic universal values, etc.
  
  
• The sustainable use of water resources, focusing in particular on regional and transboundary water issues, from both a poverty reduction and conflict prevention viewpoint.
  
  
• Regional economic development and growth, particularly capacity enhancing measures to strengthen trade policy skills and supply capacity in a regional perspective.

The cooperation aims at strengthening exchange and networking between the countries in the region, as well as contacts between Sweden and the countries in the region.

*) the MENA region consists of all the countries in the middle East and north Africa, but Sida’s regional program initially focuses on five countries: Egypt, Morocco, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. Other countries can be involved if relevant from a regional point of view.

Other characteristics of the Sida regional program are:

• The projects that Sida supports should have a strong ownership in the MENA region.
  
  
• Sida supports regional programs and project, meaning that they include cooperation, exchange or networking between countries in the region. Sweden will not establish purely bilateral cooperation with any of the countries in the region – apart from the Palestinian territories and Iraq, where Sweden already have significant bilateral programs.
  
  
• The Swedish exchange with the region should be strengthened. That would be accomplished through exchange of ideas, experience, knowledge, and cultural activities between Sweden and the region.
  Swedish organizations – governmental and non governmental – are therefore involved in the implementation of the program.
  
  
• The development cooperation should have a strong poverty perspective and target the most marginalised groups in society, meaning for instance that the main target groups for the regional program are women, children and young people. However, we need, in most cases, to target the whole society for the initiatives to have effects for these groups. During 2007 Sida will specifically work to strengthen networking of women’s and children’s rights organisations.

Link to the Strategy: http://www.regeringen.se/content/1/c6/06/85/32/60bebfc1.pdf

Examples of supported projects:

  Swedish University College for Performing Arts and Media (Dramatiska Institutet, DI), Regional capacity building program for Performing Arts
 
  Penal Reform International (PRI), for Juvenile Justice in the MENA region
 
  Euro-Mediterranean Human Rights Network (EMHRN)
 
  Unicef, Adolescents as agents of change – their right to participation
 
  Anna Lindh Euro-Mediterranean Foundation for the Dialogue between cultures, Regional program for Children’s literature and reading
 
  OECD/UNDP Public governance program, Governance and Investment for Development project
 
  Raoul Wallenberg Institute (RWI), Human Rights training in the MENA region
 
  UNIFEM, Arab Women Parliamentarians
 
  National Council for Human Rights Egypt, Arab Ombudsman Network