"AROUND 60 per cent of the health services in Egypt are provided by civil societies. There are 15 million people who are working because of, or otherwise benefiting from, the NGOs across Egypt," said Eman Beibars, the head of the Cairo-based Association for the Development and Enhancement of Women (ADEW), an NGO established in the late 1980s. "We want to know the steps to take to enable us to facilitate our work as NGOs in the near future; we also want to benefit from our own experiences and international experiences too," she told the participants of a recent two-day workshop. During the event, Beibars discussed how to support the amendments to Civil Societies Law 84/2002, proposed by the Ministry of Social Solidarity, which will be discussed in the People's Assembly (the Lower House of the Parliament) this month. The workshop was attended by representatives from the European Centre for Not-for-Profit Law (ECNL), which promotes the strengthening of a supportive legal environment for civil society in Europe by developing expertise and building capacity in legal issues affecting non-profit organisations and public participation. These representatives shared their experience with other attendees at the workshop. “Coalitions make NGOS more powerful and more skilled than any single organisation acting alone,” said Nilda Bullain, the chief executive director of the ECNL. "No two organisations think exactly alike. But if you can agree to work together, you will increase your strength and increase the probability of achieving reforms in the law." She pointed out that the most powerful coalitions are those which combine groups that are traditionally on opposite sides on most issues - when they put aside their differences to work together in the common interest, "they send a powerful signal to governments and the general public". Nilda spoke about a media outreach case study in Honduras, a small Latin American country that suffered from civil war, instability and repression. Peace accords signed there in 1991 led to the opening of the political sector to five political parties. " The NGO leaders in Honduras wanted to pass a new Civil Society Law. They began in 2006 with a press conference. TV, newspaper and radio representatives invited the heads of the five political parties to speak. This gave the media a reason to cover the event," Nilda explained. NGO leaders, she added, put the political leaders on the spot and asked them whether or not they supported the law. Even though some said no, media coverage allowed the issue to enter into the public consciousness. The campaign continued with a radio call-in programme, with many Hondurans phoning in with questions. Radio was more effective because few Hondurans had TV at the time. "Supporters also sent letters once a week to newspapers and had their letters published, attracting more attention. The most credible and articulate supporters were asked to write opinion pages in the newspapers; this eventually led to the newspapers endorsing the new law!" They became friendly with journalists by offering their support on other issues and questions; this support encouraged the journalists to give this issue a lot of coverage for the NGOs. Nilda also referred to another media outreach case study from Bulgaria. “The NGO leaders got the writer of a soap opera to have the main character fall in love with a woman working for a non-profit and they used the story to explore legal obstacles facing NGOs," she told the gathering that included chairpersons of NGOs from Cairo and other governorates, as well as media people. Nilda described how, also in Bulgaria, the NGO leaders invited journalists to tour parts of the city to see the work the NGOs were journalists learned about the value of civil society, making them more likely to serve as advocates for lobbying at the right time. In Russia, the NGOs were very successful when they approached the media, according to Nilda. "Russian NGOs organised a major international campaign, putting enormous pressure on the Russian government which eventually changed the draft law!" she said. At the end of the two-day workshop, the attendees recommended forming a coalition of the civil society organisations from different governorates, which had attended the workshop. They agreed that the coalition would be in the form of a central national committee, created under the auspices of the General Federation of NGOs and based in Cairo. This national committee will include members of the People's Assembly and Shura Council (lower and upper houses of the Egyptian Parliament) and a number of politicians and party leaders, as well as members of the media interested in the work of NGOs. Also, there should be a careful study of the proposed law to highlight the most important articles that must be changed. "Civil societies in any country play an important role in developing it, so we should shed more light on the problems we face and try to solve them," concluded Beibars.
