Why
do we love spring and look forward to it from year to year?
Sure, spring helps us endure the summer heat and winter
cold, but that’s not all. Spring has become to mean optimism and political
transformation, and is a buffer that nations need to overcome tough political
and economic climates. How we can we have a never-ending spring to regenerate
our communities?
I can’t help but
wonder: how can we sustain the Arab Spring without affecting its climate and
destroying its crop?
In my opinion, we can do it by creating capable, independent
and free-thinking farmers – or civil society organizations (CSOs) – to make a
significant and lasting impact on governments in the Arab world.
The odd thing is authoritarian regimes understood the dynamic
role of CSOs, so we had hoped that new governments would empower them. Instead,
political parties are highlighting their own priorities rather than supporting
the civil society sector. We also found that in four of the Arab Spring
countries – Egypt, Libya, Tunisia, and Yemen – succeeding political parties
ended up dividing rather than uniting their people.
This is precisely why we need strong, stable, and
independent civil service sectors, producing skilled civil workers to bring
about social, economic, and political transformations. If we get this right, we
will succeed in laying down the foundation of a bright and colourful future – a
lot like what we would expect from spring.
