September News Stories

News Story #1

WORLD BANK'S CRITICS LOOK ASKANCE AT DIALOGUE
By Emad Mekay
April 27 2005
Copyright 2005 IPS-Inter Press Service/Global Information Network IPS-Inter Press Service

A new forum launched by the World Bank to find common ground with its non-governmental critics appears to have highlighted rifts among the civil society organizations (CSOs).

Advocacy groups fell out over whether to take part in last week's meetings with the world's leading source of development loans for low-income and former Soviet countries. Some groups ultimately boycotted the sessions.

"Some CSOs see this particular event as whitewashing" designed to spruce up the bank's image, said Alnoor Ebrahim, an associate professor at the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University and co-author of the main report presented by civil society groups at the meetings. "Whether it's true or not is not, (it's) the crucial issue because the perception still remains."

Groups boycotting the World Bank-Civil Society Global Policy Forum issued a statement saying signs that the exercise was no more than a public relations gimmick included the absence from the invitation list of critical groups that had taken part in previous such bank-sponsored exchanges.

"The absence from the invitation list of virtually all of the people involved in the World Bank's previous significant engagements with international civil society should concern those considering attending," said a statement from boycotters including U.S.-based Development GAP and 50 Years Is Enough Network, Thailand-based Focus on the Global South, British-based Bretton Woods Project and Christian Aid, Brazil's Rede Brasil, and India's Delhi Forum, among others.

"What the meeting does offer is the chance for the World Bank to escape accountability for its previous failings," they added.

Stephen Commins, senior civil society specialist at the bank, rejected the notion that the bank was seeking only to polish its image.

"The forum is not a whitewash because that presumes that there's a monolithic view from civil society organizations on whether or not the bank has changed," Commins said.

On the contrary, Commins said, some groups that had signed on to the boycott nevertheless had attended other bank events and workshops the previous week. These included the Bretton Woods Project, which tracks the bank and its sister agency, the International Monetary Fund, and Christian Aid, an international development charity.

"I saw a number of those individuals at various workshops so they clearly believe that form of dialogue with the bank is important to them," he said.

Commins said the forum had largely accomplished its goal. The bank, in a statement, described this as promoting policy dialogue on "fostering a greater level of understanding and collaboration between the bank and civil society organizations."

Participants said the talks had lacked substance.

"Not a lot was achieved in concrete terms," said Steve Herz, who co-authored the discussion paper on World Bank and civil society engagement. He described the proceedings as "a lot of talking, few if any action items or specific commitments."

For that very reason, however, he wondered whether fractious debate over whether to participate had been overblown.

"The critics put too much emphasis on this particular meeting," said Herz. "I've never been quite clear what distinguishes this meeting from the myriad other engagements between the World Bank and CSOs that also end up being open ended conversations that don't produce much in the way of immediate tangible outcomes. It didn't seem to be worth the fuss."

The bank had called the Apr. 20-22 forum and paid covered all participant expenses. The talks 200-odd participants included representatives of international CSO umbrella Civicus, British Overseas NGOs for Development (BOND), Global Movement for Children, Bangladesh NGO Federation, InterAction, and Transparency International, among others.

The lender made 20 billion dollars in new loans last year for nearly 250 projects in developing nations. It exercises considerable influence over economic policymaking in borrowing countries and its decisions affect millions of people around the world.

Over the past decade, CSOs have intensified criticism of the agency, saying it is too secretive about many of its decisions despite their huge impact on people's lives.

Forum boycotters said they stayed away from the talks because the bank had not improved to their satisfaction on openness and participation. The publicly funded lender had undertaken other major participatory exercises with civil society over the past decade, only to walk away from their recommendations in the end, the groups said.

News Story #2

NATIONAL CONFERENCE CALLS FOR DIALOGUE AMONG SAUDIS AND WITH OTHER FAITHS
19 Jun 05
Al-Jazirah website, Riyadh, in Arabic

The director of the King Abdul-Aziz Centre for National Dialog, Shaykh Salih Bin-Abd-al-Rahman al-Hasin has said at the Fifth National Conference on Intellectual Dialogue that "backwardness and laziness" prevent dialogue both among Saudis and with the outside world. However, what the Saudi newspaper reporting on the meeting called "the most powerful argument", a female professsor, Zakiyah Mani'a Abu-Saq, asserted that only one dialogue was necessary: "a dialogue with other confessions". The following is text of report by Ahmad Mu'ayd, published by Saudi newspaper Al-Jazirah website on 19 June:

Najran: The fifth National Conference of Intellectual Dialogue, which was held in Najran under the slogan "We and the other... a common vision on how to deal with world cultures," adopted a number of recommendations in its final statement, foremost of which are: calls to deepen and define religious terminology on how to interact and co-exist with the other; to teach in schools' curricula the skills of how to dialogue with and relate to the other; and to teach the new generation the right concepts, based on the teachings of the Prophet, may God prayer, blessing, and benediction be upon him, and his Al-Khulafa'a al-Rashidun [Rightly-Guided Successors] on how to interact with other cultures.

The statement also underlined the need to bolster national dialogue inside the country among the various confessions across the social spectrum before embarking on a dialogue with the other; to organize international dialogues with foreign intellectuals; to make full use of modern telecommunications technology, including satellite television channels, to initiate a dialogue with foreign civilizations and societies in a bid to give a better picture of Islam and the kingdom's achievements; and to encourage the culture of reading books by underpinning its role in securing contacts with other civilizations and giving a better picture of the kingdom's cultural and civilization achievements.

The statement called furthermore for the liberalization of the kingdom's market by introducing the necessary measures that would encourage economic growth, attract investment and bolster economic cooperation between the kingdom and the rest of the world. It also urged the need to pay attention to the challenges posed by globalization and the World Trade Organization and use such challenges to the kingdom's advantage.

At the end of the meeting, which was attended by more than 50 experts in various fields from both sexes, the King Abd-al-Aziz Centre for National Dialogue [KACND] sent a message of thanks and appreciation to His Royal Highness Prince Mish'al Bin-Sa'ud Bin-Abd-al-Aziz Al Sa'ud, the emir of Najran Region, for his support and for all the help the conference had received from everyone else in the region that helped make the meeting a success. The KACND also thanked all the participants for their serious and scientific discussions at the meeting.

Shaykh Salih Bin-Abd-al-Rahman al-Hasin, the KACND director, said in his opening address that backwardness and laziness were the main reasons for not giving serious consideration to the emergence of a serious discussion; backwardness and laziness had led to the current lack of dialogue among the children of [Saudi] society itself on the one hand, and between them and the outside world on the other hand.

Speaking at the opening session of the consultative meeting, which was held before the fifth conference at the Holiday Inn Hotel in Najran yesterday, Al-Hasin said: "The KACND has chosen the title 'We and the other' for the meeting to underpin the prominence given by Islam and the Arab-Islamic civilization to objective dialogue that is based on fairness and compassion in one's own ideas and on the respect for others' opinions."

When touching on the methodology, the culture and how to get the best out of a dialogue by benefiting from others' ideas on any subject under discussion, Shaykh al-Hasin referred to verses from God's holy book, as well as to the sayings of his Prophet, may God's prayers, blessing and benediction be upon him, on the vital importance of holding dialogue with self and then with other nations, credos, and confessions. After that a documentary on the history of the FACND was played to show the various achievements of the centre since its creation.

The debate then focused on the first topic of the agenda of the meeting, i.e. the religious underpinning of dialogue with the other. The participants, whose number was 51 from both sexes, debated the need for everyone to initiate dialogue with themselves in order to clear the atmosphere between members of [Saudi] society before embarking on a dialogue with the other, which was described by a number of participants as people of other confessions.

One of the participants said, however, the debate should be focused on dialogue with others rather than just the other in order to make it clear that we are talking here about non-Muslims.

Most of the participants asserted the need for a frank and objective dialogue. They also called for the promotion of human rights, compassion and rational dialogue above everything else between peoples in order to bring about concord and understanding between all human beings.

However, the most powerful argument was articulated by Prof [Ms] Zakiyah Mani'abu-Saq when she asserted that only one dialogue is necessary: a dialogue with other confessions.

To the applause of the majority of female participants, Abu-Saq also urged the need to clear up issues, as well as to eliminate ambiguity and the deep-seated rancour which is still felt by a number of people who are using it to sow the seeds of sedition by playing on the diversity between people.

She called such people parasites who feed on nothing but people's diversity, urging the participants to support calls for the elimination of such a group of people by surmounting confessional differences by putting confrontation aside and reaching solutions through dialogue by promoting religious compassion through school books and curricula, as well as the use of the media.