Under the file of interest in supporting decentralization and good local governance, Maat Foundation for Peace, Development, and Human Rights has concluded procedures to establish “The Civil Network to Support the Decentralization”. The constituent meeting of the network was held on 17 & 18 of July with the participation of 16 civil organizations other than Maat “The Founder of The Network”, the participating associations are from (Cairo – Giza – Qalyubia – Gharbia – Bani Suef – Fayoum – Minia – Quena – Luxor)

The constituent meeting was held in the framework of the activities of Citizen’s Voice II Project, which is implemented in cooperation with the Foundation For the Future and seeks to promote the culture of the decentralization and good local governance in the Egyptian society, that leads to meet beeter rates of economic and social rights of the Egyptian citizen.

During the constituent meeting, the Statute of the network was discussed and approved. This statute defines the vision and the mission of the network, objectives and mechanisms, patterns of membership and cases of invalidity. The role of Maat Foundation for Peace, Development, and Human Rights was also adopted as “the substantive secretariat of the network that will be responsible for the management of the network system of work, organizational support and logistics for their activities, and communicate with other parties on behalf of the network”. During the constituent meeting, the Board of Trustees of the network has been elected for the coming three years:-

· Egypt Youth Society for Community Development in Minia (Chairman of the Board of Trustees of The Network)

· Maat Foundation for Peace, Development, and Human Rights in Cairo (Secretary General of The Network)

· Association for The Development of Human Rights and Tolerance Studies in Gharbia (Member)

· Women’s Association for Development in Giza (Member)

· Upper Egypt Association for Effective Development in Luxor (Member)

The civil network seeks to support decentralization to advocate and gain support for the issue of the decentralization and the good local governance based on transparency, accountability, social justice, efficiency and responsiveness to citizen’s rights, and the pressure on decision makers in order to make fundamental reforms to the system of local administration to ensure the full and real participation for citizens in decision making and local management of resources to meet the needs of their communities and in conformity with the general policy of the country and lead to improve the quality of public services and to fulfill the economic and social rights of the citizen.

It is worth mentioning that Maat Foundation initiated procedures to establish “The Civil Network to Support Decentralization” in order to have a civil effort integrated with the efforts of other organizations in calling for decentralization and the dissemination of culture in the Egyptian Society and to enable various community parties to play an active role in the process of developing a system of local administration in Egypt.

Maat Foundation will work during the next phase to take advantage of the efforts of member organizations of the network within their governorates to help them implement their planned activities in supporting the decentralization and good local governance, which will continue until 2015.

Network founders