Good governance conference slated for February 6-7
Jordan Times
Wednesday, February 2, 2005
Good governance conference slated for February 6-7
By Mahmoud Al Abed
AMMAN — Jordan will next week host a pan-Arab conference on good governance at the prime minister level during which some 16 Arab countries will brainstorm over pioneering projects designed to achieve administrative reforms in the region.
The Good Governance for Development (GfD) in the Arab countries conference will be held on the shores of the Dead Sea under the patronage of His Majesty King Abdullah on Feb. 6 -7.
At a press conference on Tuesday, Minister of Justice Salah Bashir said that the conference comes in implementation of recommendations made by Arab ministers who met in Amman in September.
The meeting, sponsored by the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) and UNDP, will tackle six aspects of good governance, each led by an Arab country that has recorded a success story in one of these fields.
For example, Jordan will present its achievements in judiciary reform. Bashir noted that the Amman Court of First Instance — the subject of a pilot project — has recorded a 14 per cent drop in the number of cases filed since the beginning of the project, which includes training of judges, computerisation of the courts' operation and increasing judicial staff.
Lebanon will present the conference with its experience in the role of civil society and the media in public sector reform, while Morocco will lead the discussions on civil service and integrity. Dubai, Tunisia and Egypt have been labelled as pioneers in the fields of e-government, public service delivery and governance of public finance respectively.
What is special about the three-year projects that Arab countries are likely to embrace in their pursuit of reforms is that they are “home-grown.”
“What distinguishes this initiative is that it sprang from the womb of Arab experience,” Bashir said, adding that the Kingdom has been leading the efforts in which officials and UN and OECD experts have worked to put together ideas for administrative reform in the Arab world.
By the end of the Dead Sea conference, participants are expected to agree on a “collective leadership” that will oversee the implementation of the projects adopted in the meeting.
So far, the UNDP provided most of the funding for the studies conducted, estimated at $15 million. Individual projects will be implemented by concerned countries with funding from various sources.
“The Arab world does not lack money for projects,” the minister told reporters.
“What countries need is institutional potential to realise development and deal with change,” he added.
If the goals of the pan-Arab project are achieved, Bashir said, people of the area would see results manifested in the prevalence of accountability, transparency and good administration.
The OECD, according to its website, groups 30 member countries sharing a commitment to democratic government and the market economy. Its work covers economic and social issues from macro-economics, to trade, education, development and science and innovation.
The overall objective of the GfD initiative is to create, consolidate and strengthen the capacity of Arab countries to design and implement policies of public governance reform, in a way that creates an enabling environment conducive to development and growth, according to the organisers.
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