The book is a study of multiple cases of citizenship and its support through the localities. The book includes cases from Egypt, Tunisia, Lebanon, Iraq, Morocco and Yemen.

The question of this book is how we strengthen citizenship through municipalities and local communities in the Arab region.

The involvement of citizens in the political process is an essential part of democracy. 

Citizen participation in local governance involves ordinary citizens assessing their own needs and participating in local project planning and budget monitoring. It is important for improving public resource management and reducing corruption, by making public servants and political leaders accountable to the people.

Political participation including local activism is one of the main areas of citizenship and it includes the variety of activities, which help to exercise the political power.

Than concerning the evaluation of the participation of women and youth in the local elections in Morocco.

There is a legal support for women and youth participation in local election but there are many cultural, social and political disadvantages, which do not help them to express their will to be part of the political life.

In Lebanon, women and youth political participation in municipalities is not very different from other countries in the Arab region.

The initiative of “Beirut my city” was able to transform traditional framework of political participation that has been clearly demonstrated by the encouragement of citizen to direct participation by reliance on social networking as an open space of political debate.

The evaluation of the presence of women and youth at the local level through civil society work in Egypt.

There are many challenges that obstruct women and youth political participation in the local level, despite that civil work has been an area for women and youth’s participation, with the revolution there are many initiatives and groups, which help and encourage women and youth that were marginalized before to participate in political life.

In Tunisia, the law provides an important quota that favors the participation of women, youth, and people with disabilities.

Despite the inclusion of youth on the electoral lists, participation among young people was not high, especially among those between 18 and 21 years old. Concerning women there are still many barriers that weakness their participation

In conflict zone such as Yemen, the issue is how to promote the principles and values of citizenship through local participation of women and youth?

Actually Yemeni women today face the same marginalization of other groups such as the youth and southern secessionist movement who are also absent from the negotiation table.

In Iraq, problems of participation and role at the local level in times of crisis and the importance of decentralization in dealing with is particular also because of the conflict, the development of the political and administrative capacities of women and youth is an important component of sustainable development programs

At the local level, pluralistic and participatory democratic practices is one of the key factors for attracting and nominating young people to play a symbolic role in the local political level.

The Arab region has the lowest participation of women in political life globally; Women are also under-represented in political parties, and in ministerial positions. This under-representation translates further into public life, including in engaging in political activities and voting.

Actually even if there are some differences between countries studied in the book especially between those in time of crisis such as Iraq and Yemen and other countries, but the participation of women and youth in the local level is still marginalized in all those countries.

The full book is available in Arabic on the following link: https://bit.ly/2SAZ6tC