Middle East

AFSC - Jordan

Middle East Regional Office

The Middle East program consists of 2 components:
Development and relief programs coordinated by the Middle East Regional Office and Quaker Middle East International Affairs Representative currently based in Amman.

The Middle East Regional Office coordinates locally implemented projects throughout the region, which focus primarily upon community and youth development (Gaza, West Bank, and Israel), relief and reconstruction (Iraq, Palestine, Turkey).

Arab Partnership for Conflict Prevention and Human Security Steering Committee Meeting Beirut, Lebanon, Dec. 5-6, 2005

Simultaneously the Regional Office is responsible for new program exploration, building contacts with community-based Non-Governmental Organizations throughout the Middle East, supporting and initiating regional networks of non-governmental and governmental organizations for the purpose of promoting specific issues. The regional office is also taking an active role in emergencies in coordination with AFSC's US based staff.

Current Research

Perceptions About Corporate Responsibility Towards Youth Development in Jordan

To encourage greater public and youth participation in decision-making and address the deep and pervasive feeling of disempowerment that exists throughout the region, the research was conducted and published in order to promote a healthy and responsible environment for win-win outcomes for youth, government, business and the society at large.

Perceptions About Guns and Community Security in the Middle East-

This is a preliminary study that aims to contribute to a greater understanding among community members, decision makers and analysts of what drives people, especially young people, to possess and use small arms.

Current networks supported by AFSC:

Middle East North African Network on Small Arms (MENAANSA) is a group of roughly 20 Arab non-governmental organizations in the Middle East working to stem the misuse and spread of illicit small arms and light weapons. The network focuses mostly on factors that drive demand for small arms and on promoting concepts of human security in the region. The network includes members in Algeria, Bahrein, Gaza, Iraq, Jordan, Lebanon, Sudan, Syria, the West Bank and Yemen. For more information go to www.mena-small-arms.org.

The Arab Partnership for Conflict Prevention and Human Security was formed in February, 2005 as part of a larger effort to contribute to the UN Global Process on the Role of Civil Society in the Prevention of Armed Conflict (GPPAC). The Arab Partnership will focus their efforts in the areas of capacity building, dialogue and awareness building and human security.

Middle East Regional Youth Action Network (MERYAN) - is a network of young people and youth organizations that seek to build bridges across all borders that divide Arab youth, drawing its uniqueness from the diversity of its members that is rooted in their realities and experiences. In 2004, the AFSC Middle East youth program coordinator and several other Arab youth attended the International Youth Parliament in Sydney, Australia. Meryan network was formed as an outcome of a follow-up meeting of AFSC and non-AFSC sponsored IYP delegates.