Maat Foundation for Peace, Development and Human Rights concluded, on Thursday, November 25, 2010, the training program for local media professionals on decentralization, which came under the title “Enhancing the role of local media in light of decentralization”, with a training workshop held on Wednesday and Thursday, 25 journalists, media professionals and website editors participated in In Helwan Governorate. The training workshop comes within the framework of the activities of the Citizen's Voice (2) project implemented by the Maat Foundation for Peace, Development and Human Rights with funding from the Foundation for the Future, which seeks to build the capacities of different community parties in dealing with decentralization, and to develop effective and innovative mechanisms to monitor the needs of citizens and evaluate the quality of public services provided By the executive authorities, the project also seeks to spread the culture of decentralization in the Egyptian society and the effective employment of local and mass media in support of decentralization and monitoring the needs of citizens. The training program for local media professionals aimed to raise their awareness of decentralization and enable them to have good media coverage of violations of the rights of local citizens, which leads to The role of local media will be more effective and influential in light of the political, social and legislative changes associated with decentralization. The training program for local media professionals that was implemented throughout November 2010 included the holding of four training workshops, the first of which was in Cairo on November 3-4, and the second in Sharqia on 7 , On November 8, the third in Qena on November 13 and 14, and the fourth in Helwan on November 24 and 25 Barr. Prof. Dr. Saleh Al-Sheikh, a professor of political science and advisor to the Minister of Local Development in Egypt, lectured in the training workshop for local media professionals in Helwan, in the context of the continuous cooperation between Maat and the technical office to support the decentralization of the ministry, which has continued since the first phase of the project. Shoaib is a famous journalist and managing editor of the news website “Al Youm Al Sabea,” and director of the United Journalists Center. On its first day, the training workshop included training content on decentralization and its types, good local governance and its components, and the extent to which decentralization has been achieved in the Egyptian legislative and procedural reality, in addition to a presentation of the experience currently being applied by the Ministry of Local Development related to financial decentralization, and the role of various local community parties in dealing with these Experience, and the role of local media specifically in that. The second day of the workshop also included training sessions on the media and its role, investigative journalism and its concept, its objectives, importance and principles, how to rely on the human element as one of the evidence that can be used to prepare a good media material, media coverage of violations of citizens' rights, planning a good media campaign, and how to use polls Public opinion in covering violations of citizens' rights. The activities of the training program for local media professionals revealed several important and central facts, perhaps the most prominent of which is that they are more responsive, willing and enthusiastic to absorb the training content from their peers in other media, and the workshops also revealed the growth and increase of local electronic media platforms, but they lack material and technical support for them and those in charge of them. The training workshops also emphasized that the inclusion of local media professionals in any activity related to supporting decentralization is necessary for the success of its implementation. In the coming days, Maat Foundation is preparing to start the training program for members of local popular councils, which aims to reach 400 members of the local people's council, and the program to raise citizens' awareness of decentralization, which targets more than 1,600 citizens, most of them women and youth.