Who we are?

We are a regional coalition of Civil Society from MENA, whose watching the operations of International Financial Institutions (IFIs) in the region to make sure that the development processes are inclusive, participatory, just, and sustainable for all. We engage with civil society, local communities, and right-holders to ensure their interests are reflected in the national development.

Our Story

A group of 23 civil society representatives from six countries in the MENA region have been working together for years on issues related to the portfolios of the International Financial Institutions in the region. In April 2018, fueled by a common determination to shift the development paradigms to be about achieving social, economic and environmental justice, this group announced the launching of the Arab Watch Coalition.

What we do?

The global development agendas are mainly set and financed by the International Financial institutions (IFIs); whereas the local communities, who are benefiting from, or impacted by, those agendas, are often absent from the decision making process. The MENA region is not an exception to this reality.

AWC targets IFIs operating in MENA, trying to open channels of communications between the impacted communities and/or the civil society groups that represent them. On the other hand, AWC partners with other IFIs watcher organizations around the world to advocate for more opening and opportunities in IFIs policies that enable the communities to be engaged, respond to their needs and concerns, and achieve justice.

IFIs operating in MENA region

Our Methodology

Engagement

Facilitate MENA CSOs engagement with the IFIs.

Disseminate timely information on IFIs’ operations in the region to civil society groups.

Provide technical support to CSOs to understand IFIs mandates and policies, and build their capacity to make use of the different engagement entry points provided by those policies.

Ressources

Activities

Advocacy

Amplify the voice of MENA CSOs and impacted communities with different IFIs.

Organize, and/or participate in global advocacy campaigns targeting specific IFIs policies to promote for more justice and opening.

Brief..

Accountability

Expand access to IFIs’ accountability mechanisms for impacted communities in the region;

Target IFIs

Networking

Facilitate horizontal networking among different groups in the region, and with groups in other regions in the world, who share the same interests vis-a vis the IFIs.

Facilitate vertical networking with international NGOs that could influence IFIs’ decision-making processes.

Partners

In early 2024, AWC’s General Assembly approved a new Transitional Strategy to guide AWC’s operations.

2023-25 Strategy

Main Campaigns

#CitizenEngagement

Many communities are harmed by projects financed by the International Financial Institutions. The harms might include, but not limited to, land confiscation, unvoluntary resettlement, loss of livelihood, health problems, damage to natural habitats, and environmental issues.

Citizen Engagement campaign strives to enable all relevant right-holders to be effectively involved in the decision-making concerning IFIs’ financed projects. It also aims at ensuring operational and effective complaints and grievances redress mechanisms that are accessible to all affected communities.

#HumanRightsInCommon

#EndAusterity

Loans programs and conditionalities include adjustments in fiscal and economic policies that promote public budget cuts to ensure future debts repayment. Most often those policies include privatization of public assets, reduction in public expenditures, and cuts in public sector services. Many indebted countries around the world are hostages of these austerity reforms, which are entrenching existing inequalities and bringing people to their knees.

#EndAusterity is an ongoing campaign that gather hundreds of civil society organizations from different parts of the world. The campaign advocates for sustainable economic programs that provide the necessary foundation on which people can build decent and prosper lives instead of austerity-arrangements that squeeze people livelihood for generations.

#CancelDebts

Foreign debt burdens for countries with fragile background, especially those facing geopolitical conflicts, is one fundamental human rights’ abuse. We all have witnessed the brutality of the war in Yemen, leading to countless deaths and total destruction of the country’s infrastructures, including houses, hospitals and schools. We have been also witnessing famine and collapse of the whole human vital conditions during the last 6 years.

Together with AWC members from Yemen, we are pushing by all means to relieve the country from its burden and call other countries to support the country and its people.

#CancelYemenDebts

#Transparency&
Accountability

After they have been countered by civil society articulating its critiques to the existing governance system, many IFIs began to virtually admitting accountability instruments and policies of transparency. While this transformative paradigm appears to be a positive step forward to enhance the development’s outcomes, they lack of several deficiencies in different levels.

Without an active channel of information and communication between investors and citizens, projects financed by IFIs might have crucial consequences damaging people and their environment. Given the number of complaints submitted, information requested without response and the distance between the projects’ aims and the reality on the ground, this campaign is calling for realistic and accessible means to hold these institutions accountable at the local level and by any concerned citizen.

#ESS_beforeFinancial

#ClimateJustice

Despite the IFIs’ high ambitions to foster the clean energy transition, the current controversial context attests significant dissimilarities between the theoretical and practical commitments. This campaign calls on the IFIs to make tangible commitments to fight climate change on the ground.

#StopFundingFossil

If you have questions/concerns about a specific development project in your area.

Speak with us