Réalités et problèmes des ONG au Yémen (résumé)

L’apparition des organisations de la société civile au Yémen, dans un sens à la fois non-gouvernemental et non-ethnique ou non-religieux, est récente par rapport à d’autres pays : depuis 1990, au moment de la Réunification. Dans les dernières années, le nombre de ces institutions et organisations civiles s’est accru : on estime à 4000 celles qui sont officiellement enregistrées au Ministère des Affaires Sociales. Elles ont commencé à jouer un rôle dans la société civile en particulier depuis ..

Realities and Difficulties of NGO’s in Yemen (abstract)

The emergence in Yemen of civil society organizations which are, at the same time non-governmental, non-ethnic and non-religious, is a recent phenomenon as compared with other countries. They appeared since 1990, at the time of the Reunification. In the recent years, the number of these civil institutions and organizations has grown up: some 4000 are officially registered at the Ministry of Social Affairs. They started playing an important role in the civil society especially since the applic..

Société civile, associations et pouvoir local au Yémen

La multiplication des associations non gouvernementales à la fin des années quatre‑vingt-dix au Yémen, accompagnée par la législation yéménite (loi de 2001) représente un phénomène social majeur, d’autant qu’elle est concomitante avec l’accroissement des aides étrangères directement octroyées aux ONG dans une optique « participative ». Elle est aussi contemporaine d’un processus de décentralisation initialisé par l’État et destiné à renforcer les autorités locales. Cette floraison de nouveaux thèmes d’action civique, comme les droits de l’Homme, la promotion de la femme, l’environnement, représente aussi une continuation par rapport à une société civile qui s’était déjà distinguée au cours du xxe siècle par l’action caritative, le militantisme syndical et politique, les coopératives de développements et une société traditionnelle riche en mécanismes de solidarité. Que représente cette nouvelle phase pour le développement de la société civile et de la démocratie au Yémen ? C’est ce que tentent de définir les contributeurs yéménites et étrangers au présent ouvrage, réunissant les actes de la Table Ronde « Société civile, citoyenneté et pouvoir local » qui s’était tenue à Sanaa en juillet 2006 à l’initiative du CEFAS et de la fondation FES (Un volume en français / anglais et un volume en arabe).The multiplication of non-governmental associations at the end of the nineties in Yemen, accompanied by the Yemeni legislation (law of 2001) represents a major social phenomenon, in as much as it is contemporary with the growth of foreign aids directly granted to the NGO’s in a “participatory” way. It is also concomitant with a decentralization process initiated by the State and meant to reinforce the local authorities. This blossoming of new themes like development, human rights, women promotion and environment is but a continuation from a dynamic civil society which had distinguished itself during the 20th century by charity action, union and political militancy, cooperative development and a traditional society rich in solidarity mechanisms. What represents this new phase for the development of civil society and democracy in Yemen? This is the question which the Yemeni and foreign contributors try to answer in this book. It gathers the proceedings of the Conference “Civil Society, citizenship and local power” which had been organized in Sanaa in July 2006 by CEFAS and FES (One volume in French/English and one volume in Arabic)

Returning to Political Parties?

Are Arab parties facing a predicament? Are they paying the price of repression and limited pluralism? Have they become obsolete to the benefit of other political groups and mobilization modes such as communities, tribes, “asabiyyat” or to the disadvantage of non governmental organizations, associations and social movements? While some predicted “the end of parties” in the region as a result of authoritarian political systems, doesn’t the recent transition from the one party rule towards a fragile plural party system in many countries put again party organizations in the spotlight? Most of the time, contemporary Arab parties have little mobilizing power. Yet some are crawling out of underground activities and trying their hands at the exercise of power after years of oppositions. Others, and mainly on the Islamist arena, assert themselves as first hand mobilization structures, able in certain cases to compete with regimes in power. This book addresses those research questions. Emphasizing new and unpublished data, the book’s diverse contributions tackle holistically party life in six countries that have adopted very different political pathways: Yemen, Bahrain, Lebanon, Morocco, Algeria and Iraq. All the studies approach the decline or the revival of the parties from a long term historical perspective mainly with regard to political institutions in those six countries. The studies focus on the rules of party games, on the junction between “the right to politics” and “political rights”. They reveal the fine-tuning between ideological frameworks and political strategies. They raise questions about the renewal of elites, forms of militant activism, the array of parties’ political activities, particularly social ones. They examine the issue of identity construction and political solidarities in the framework of the nation state, or in contradiction with it. As a final point, the book inquires about how party life in those six countries accounts for political transformations: possible democratization of regimes, forms of domination that are played out within those regimes, the emergence of the breakdown of leaderships and finally the rationale behind mobilization and collective action. This book is published with the support of the program on Political Party Development in the Arab World (Algeria, Bahrain, Iraq, Lebanon, Morocco and Yemen) financed by the International Development Research Center (Ottawa, Canada).This publication gathers a series of studies undertaken within this framework. More studies are available on the project's website: www.appstudies.org The opinions expressed in this book are the responsibility of their authors and do not necessarily reflect the opinions of the Lebanese Center for Policy Studies or the International Development Research Center. The chapters in the book have been translated from French and Arabic to English by Nathanel London, Francoise Gillepsie, Nathalie Nahas, Angelique Baino, Jennifer Berry and Assaad Makary