News

The Ministerial Committee headed by Samir Mokbel and entrusted with the review of the Nationality law concluded its deliberations on Friday and focused on studying the financial costs of implementing a basket of services in lieu of rights.  The Minister of Interior, Marwan Charbel, noted for his part that the Committee has not completed its deliberations but has just delved into the financial aspects of their proposals.  The Coordinator of my Nationality is a Right for me and my Family campaign noted that it is unacceptable to exchange rights for services and that the main demand of the campaign remains the full recognition of women’s citizenship rights through reforming the law so that both women and men can transmit their nationality.
Source: Al-Safir, Al-Akhbar, Al-Mustaqbal 25 February 2013

The Minister of Information, Walid Daouk, opened last Saturday a training workshop organized by Smart Centre and in collaboration with Women in Front and the Ministry of Information.  The opening began with an address by the president of Smart Centre Randa Yassir, followed by the founding member of Women in Front, Joel Abou Farhat and the Minister of Information who focused on women’s “unstable” role in society and the important role that they play in the banking sector, in the media and in the judiciary.  The Minister also called for strengthening women’s role in politics and noted that although he was in favor of women’s quota, however, according to him, the quota should not be imposed.  He called for putting in place action plans and strategies to organize action which would contribute to the advancement of women.
In a related vein, Smart centre launched last Sunday the second phase of its project in support of women’s voices during a national conference and aiming at introducing women candidates to the key role that campaign managers play before the elections.
Source: Al-Nahar, Al-Anwar 25 February 2013

The Centre for Environment and Development Research at the Beirut Arab University hosted, within the framework of its project to encourage and protect medicinal and herbal plants in the Bekaa which is implemented in collaboration with the Green Hand Association, two international experts from ACDI/VOCA-USAID David Wagner and Florence Wagner, in order to benefit from their expertise in drawing an action plan for the project in addition to a business plan as well as to the contribution to building the capacities of women and contributing to local development.

The project seeks to develop this agricultural sector in Lebanon and to increase the income of farmers as well as create new job opportunities in the Bekaa while including rural women in the process.  During their visits, the two experts assisted organizations and women groups in the Bekaa in improving social and economic development in the area though raising women’s awareness, and promoting their community and national participation.  By the end of the visit, the experts submitted to the Centre a comprehensive plan with details on the elements needed for its successful implementation.  The plan was based on a market study and on a review of available resources, legal frameworks and trade laws.

To be noted that overall the project involves planting and protecting 30 kinds of medicinal and herbal plants as well as studying the possibility of introducing alternative plants.  The project also seeks to develop protocols for sustainable agriculture of such plants in the Bekaa in collaboration with relevant stakeholders in addition to conducting applied research.  The project involves three stages and will extend over a surface area of 15000 hectares of land.  In a later stage, the Centre will collaborate with Green Hand Association in studying the composition and characteristics of these plants in collaboration with the Faculty of Pharmacy at the University.  This will involve a transfer of knowledge to the communities of the bekaa in order to assist in developing new small and medium enterprises which will contribute to local social and economic development. The project is managed by the Head of the Center Dr. Safaa Baydoun, and the agriculture expert at the university Dr. Fouad Saad as well as Zaher Radwan President of Green Hand Association.
Source: Al-Mustaqbal 22 February 2013

The National Commission for Lebanese Women organised in cooperation with UNFPA and with the participation of a number of women and civil society organisations a consultation workshop in preparation for the implementation of the National Strategy for Women in Lebanon.
The Secretary of the NCLW, lawyer Fady Karam, gave a keynote address on behalf of First Lady Wafa Suleiman and the NCLW focusing on the strategy and the process which led to its development and which involved a series of in-depth meeting with various stakeholders.  These meetings and consultations allowed NCLW to identify ways of implementing each of the Strategy's objectives as well as to define indicators to monitor and measure progress.  Karam reiterated that the methodology followed emphasized communication with the public sector as well as cooperation with civil society organisations.

Nissia Dannaoui spoke on behalf of the UNFPA and noted that despite advances made, women still suffer from discrimination in social, political and economic opportunities and are still vulnerable to violence at a time when their rights including their reproductive rights are not upheld by laws and especially family laws and their participation in political life remains limited.

At the end of the event, the coordinator of the project, Najwa Bassil, presented the key elements of the national strategy which seeks to build the capacities of organisations working on the rights of women and strengthen collaboration between civil society and the public sector.  She also noted that the Strategy seeks to build a strong institutional base for NCLW which will act as an official reference on issues related to the rights of women and their protection.

Source: Al-Mustaqbal, Al-Nahar 21 February 2013

"Made at Home" organisation will be holding training workshops in Akkar and Tripoli from 22 to 28 February with the aim of empowering women and achieving rural development as part of its economic empowerment in rural areas project which is funded by the US Embassy in Beirut.
This new round of training is the second the training cycles that are being organised following the sessions held in Shouf and Aley.  These sessions will seek to train women on producing home made traditional food in addition to packaging, storing and electronic marketing in accordance with international standards of food safety and quality.  
For more information about this initiative, refer to the previous article: “Made at Home” concludes its training workshop in Bedghan (Aley), published on WEEPortal on 4/12/2012.
Source: Al-Mustaqbal 21 February 2013

The Women in Front organization launched its 2013 electoral strategy entitled “Women in Parliament”, which is part of a joint project implemented jointly with SMART Centre and funded by US MEPI and which seeks to improve the participation of women and their impact on politics in Lebanon through supporting the candidacy of 64 women to run in the next parliamentary elections.

In an interview with l’Orient le Jour, the two founders of Women in Front, Nada Anid and Joelle Abou Farhat stated that their association want to challenge the patriarchal supremacy over women and clarified that their project focuses on building on the experiences of pioneer women and seeks to change the stereotypes of women in Lebanon and to promote women as decision makers.  According to Anid and Abou Farhat, the main output of the project will be in the form of a roster of CVs for 150 women candidates in addition to an advertising campaign that will run on local TVs, in addition to the holding of 6 meetings aiming to discuss the role of women pioneers and women voters and to be organised incollaboration with a large number of civil society organizations.

Source: l’Orient le Jour 19 February 2013

The Minister of Agriculture, Dr. Hussein Haj Hassan, organised a joint Press Conference with the Chairperson of IDAL, Nabil Itani, with the attendance of the members of the IDAL board and representatives of the Chambers of Industry and Commerce in Lebanon, and a number of farmers and exporters.  The purpose of the event was to disclose the first results of Agri-Plus, a programme aiming at the development of agricultural exports, and currently being implemented by IDAL.  This new programme was launched a year ago and has already recorded a 14% increase in agricultural exports during 2012 scoring a total of 454 thousand tons in exports compared to 400 thousand tons in 2011.

Itani kicked off the press conference by presenting the various components of the Agri-Plus programme which seeks to support packaging centres and production plants in order that they can receive international certification for quality such as HACCP and ISO.  He added that the number of such centres has now reached 80 centers noting that five of these centres as well as ten farmers now have international certifications.  Itani also added that according to IDAL’s statistics, Lebanon exports of citrus fruits were the highest among agricultural products recording 102 thousand tons of exports (22% of total agricultural products).  A similar quantity of potatoes was exported and 38 thousand tons of fruits (9% of total agricultural exports). The programme according to Itani also recorded agriculture products which were exported for the first time such as olive oil, honey and seedlings with olive oil showing encouraging results as its exports reached 1132 tons.

The Minister of Agriculture noted that the total export figures are aggregated from the Ministry, the Directorate of Customs, and IDAL since there are agricultural products that are being exported outside the framework of the Agri-Plus programme.  The aggregate figures indicate that there is an increase in exports of most kinds of agricultural products except citrus fruits which declined by 16.79% in 2012 compared to 2011.  According to the Minister, this decline in export of citrus fruit can be largely attributed to the cut throat competition with similar Egyptian products.  However, he added that the decline in exports of potatoes and onions is largely due to restrictions placed by the Ministry on the imports of these products thus increasing local consumption and demand.  The Minister also confirmed that exports through maritime transport significantly increased particularly for apples (28 thousand tons of exports).  Maritime exports of olive oil, grapes, apricots and potatoes have also increased to 36 thousand tons.  The Minister finely indicated that a preparatory meeting will be held between the Ministry, IDAL, exporters and the unions of maritime transport in order to upgrade the current maritime export routes.  Within this framework, the Minister disclosed that several visits will be held to a number of countries notably France in order to explore new markets and diversify export outlets.

For more information about IDAL achievements c.f. IDAL releases its 2012 report and shares its achievement in supporting the agricultural and food processing sectors published on WEEPortal on 14/01/2013
Source: Al-Mustaqbal, Al- Safir, Al-Nahar 19 February 2013

The Collective for Research and Training on Development – Action organized last week a training workshop for media staff in North Lebanon on women’s economic rights.  The workshop was organized on 14 and 15 February 2013 and was hosted at the Committee for Mothers in Tripoli.  The event was planned and organized within the framework of the Regional Economic Empowerment of Women Project and which is funded by Canadian CIDA and managed by Oxfam Quebec.

Twenty two trainees attended this workshop which was coordinated by Hosn Khalaf representing CRTD.A.  The facilitator was media expert Magda Abou Fadel who was joined by journalist Saada Allaw on the second day.  The workshop focused on framing the issue of women’s economic empowerment, the challenges that women face and the ways in which these can be addressed.  Participants were exposed to the situation of women in the Lebanese economy with a highlight on the role that rural women cooperatives play in strengthening the economic participation of women.  Saada Allaw shared the results of a study she undertook for CRTD.A on the ways in which the media addresses the issue of women’s economic rights and the challenges they face.

Source: Al-Mustaqbal 18 February 2013