Beyond Turmoil: A Positive Agenda
The conference program was structured in more than twenty sessions, dialogues, and policy forums and it structured itself around four pillars: Shared Prosperity, Shared Security, Migration, and Civil Society & Culture. High-ranking speakers included US Secretary of State John Kerry, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov, Federica Mogherini, the EU’s High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Iraqi Minister of Foreign Affairs Ibrahim Al-Jaafari, and Iranian Deputy Minister for Foreign Affairs Seyed Kazem Sajjadpour. Together with other experts and academics, they offered their analyses and rationales on different dossiers and countries in the MENA region.
Within the conference framework, the DGAP organized a policy forum on “Inclusive Transitions: Civil Societies as Key Actors,” with speakers such as Ouidad Bouchamaoui (president of the Tunisian Confederation of Industry, Trade, and Handicrafts, UTICA), Fouad Makhzoumi (chairman of the Makhzoumi Foundation in Lebanon), Bassma Kodmani (executive director of the Arab Reform Initiative), and Rosa Balfour (acting director for the Europe program at the German Marshall Fund).
The most promising example cited was again Tunisia. There was consensus that the Tunisian experience continues to be unique in the MENA region – despite a feeling of stagnation reported by Tunisians themselves, the precarious security situation, continuous socioeconomic malaise, and the very slow pace of reforms and of translating the progressive 2014 Tunisian constitution into laws. It was also agreed that Tunisia needs comprehensive support to help it bring its efforts to fruition and to avoid setbacks.
Bouchamaoui of UTICA – one of four civil society organizations that received the 2015 Nobel Peace Prize for initiating the national dialogue in Tunisia – directly addressed the Ennahda party president Rachid Ghannouchi, who was seated in the audience. She stressed the need for non-Islamists and Islamists (or better the "Muslim democrats," as Ghannouchi calls the Ennahda party today) to continue working together. The same message was also conveyed to many other countries in the region, countries currently witnessing zero-sum politics, fierce internal divisions, Islamist versus non-Islamist schisms, and a deepening Sunni-Shiite divide.
