JEDDAH, 21 March 2006 — The United States is interested in building bridges of communication and partnership with Saudi women to help them achieve their objectives, according to an official from the Department of State.
At a roundtable discussion with a number of female journalists on Sunday, Erin Walsh, senior adviser at the Bureau of Near Eastern Affairs, said that she has been meeting with people in charity agencies, private schools and other organizations and talking about different areas for collaborative work.
Walsh’s second visit to the Kingdom in two months took her to the Eastern Province, Riyadh, Qasim and Jeddah as part of the US State Department’s US-Saudi Strategic Dialogue delegation. She met with officials in preparation for the forthcoming meeting in Washington with Saudi Foreign Minister Prince Saud Al-Faisal and US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
Walsh said that one of the largest programs the US State Department has in the region is called the Middle East Partnership Initiative (MEPI). Launched in 2003, it focuses on fomenting democratic institutions and reform efforts in the region.
“The difference between the goals of MEPI and others is that ours is a short-term program, 12 to 24 months, so it not a development-type program. The key areas are democracy, education, women’s empowerment and economic empowerment,” said Walsh.
Establishing such programs and partnerships takes time and part of her mission in visiting Saudi Arabia is getting to know the people. “Because we’re doing programs across 16 countries in the region, it’s important to focus on each country and spend time doing that,” she said.
Twenty-three programs for women’s empowerment were set up, some regional and some specific to the country. The programs are divided in four areas: women’s rights, women in the law, women’s economic empowerment and women’s political participation.
“The focus of MEPI program is not government-to-government, but people-to-people,” said Walsh. “We work with NGOs in the countries and international NGOs that apply for funding for a specific program with a particular group in a country or a region. Because here you don’t have NGO laws in place, no civil society or formal organizations that an organization in the US can work with directly, we have to work with the framework that exists.”
Under the women’s economic-empowerment program, there are a number of region-wide programs that have a focus on Saudi Arabia. One of them is the businesswomen’s network. Six countries including Saudi Arabia have been selected to be businesswomen’s network hubs. They were established in May and will help form the next MEPI regional summit in November.
“The purpose of the hubs is to be the satellite points for women to go for knowledge-transfer because women said they want access to knowledge and cutting-edge global business practices, particularly in light of the World Trade Organization,” said Walsh, referring to Saudi Arabia’s recent accession to the WTO.
The MEPI has established a speakers’ bureau in which Americans will participate. The bureau will promote dialogue with the help of a group of NGOs in the US to focus on entrepreneurial programs for men and women in small and medium enterprises.
The first MEPI summit was in Tunisia last year and the second will be in a Gulf country that will be announced in a month. Each hub will organize nine events over the course of a year and invite 50 to 200 people to each event so that more people will be exposed to the knowledge and information.
Another regional network is the Arab Women’s Legal Network, based in Jordan, includes women legal professionals in the region. They are also starting a regional program with Freedom House called “Reform of the family law program” in three Gulf countries — Kuwait, Bahrain and Oman — modeled off the Moroccan law.
A program that might be based in Saudi Arabia is one recently announced by Karen Hughes when she was in Dubai along with officials from Microsoft, the Institute for International Education and MEPI and partnering with different organizations in each country. “We are starting in the Gulf and hoping that Saudi Arabia will be a flagship country,” said Walsh. “The idea is to work with women’s groups, women’s colleges and organizations to provide women with IT skills, training and focus on building a curriculum with the Institute that focuses on soft skills, such as communications, negotiation and resume writing.”
Walsh also addressed the post 9/11 relationship between the US and Saudi Arabia.
“We recognize that there have been strains on relationships since 9/11. Historically Saudi Arabia and the US have been very close friends and in the last five years there have lots of strains put on the relationship. Where we are moving now with President Bush and King Abdullah is that we are beginning to address those strains, not only around conference tables, but to begin understanding each other, and that is really the goal of MEPI.”
