Soapbox: How to revive civil society? By Ayman Abdel-Wahab Now that a sense of inclusion and pluralism is needed, don't we all wish that civil society were more vibrant? Everyone expects civil society to fill in the vacuum left by years of neglect. The erosion of human rights, the distortion of democracy, the terrible sense that Islamists are undermining national unity, all these are things that one would have hoped civil society to address. Alas, it cannot, at least not in its current form. Civil society lacks a lot of things that could have helped it play the role that many people expect it to step into. There is the fact that many of the organisations are undertrained and underfunded. There is the fact that religious polarisation is encouraging attempts by both Islamists and Christians to use civil society groups for their own advantage. And there is the fact that the focus on charity work is distracting attention from the long-term goals of development, democracy and empowerment. All is not lost, however. Measures to empower civil society in the short term are not hard to implement. For one thing, we can reform the laws governing civil society organisations, to allow cooperatives, syndicates and youth centres the chance to partner with business and government departments in various development projects. There is also a chance that umbrella organisations can be established to help small and medium-scale groups to get more engaged in development efforts and rights advocacy. Also, if foreign funding seems to be such a problem, perhaps we need to improve the skills of fundraising among civil society groups and start encouraging a culture of volunteer work throughout society. Civil society organisations, with a bit more training and information, can be essential in monitoring government projects and stamping out corruption. The empowerment of civil society, once it translates into empowerment of local societies, could offer a considerable boost to democracy. This in turn could energise civil society and allow it to play the role on which so much hope is pinned. This week's Soapbox speaker is director of the Civil Society Unit at Al-Ahram Centre for Political and Strategic Studies.
