WANA Forum: Building trust together

Under the leadership of HRH prince Hassan bin Talal, sixty individuals from across the West Asia and North Africa region came together to establish WANA Forum. The forum's mission is to facilitate dialogue amongst people of the region from all sections of society, in order to develop practical solutions to address the most pressing social, economic and environmental needs of West Asia- North Africa as a whole.

The group behind this form presented a number of proposals which will be formed and advocated for among decision makers as a campaign for policy changes.

This initiative will help strengthen regional multilateral dialogue centered on shared human concerns by providing a non-threatening forum for decision makers, civil society and the people of the region. We will work together to ensure the continuous exchange of ideas and initiatives, yielding concrete policy proposals for regional cooperation. And advocate creative and effective policies to be adopted by decision makers at local, national and regional levels.

The WANA Forum is based on seven principles:

• Mutual respect: committing to working together and searching for common ground.
• Cultural diversity: facilitating unprejudiced dialogue and appreciating a wide spectrum of views on regional development from various countries in WANA.
• Inclusiveness: ensuring adequate opportunities for participation, paying special attention to those often marginalized from political process in the region especially civil society.
• Empowerment: prioritizing policy issues which empower all stakeholders, choosing working methods that facilitate empowerment in the future, long after the conclusion of the WANA process.
• Practicality: aiming to move from ideas to action.
• Openness and transparency: ensuring adequate availability of information about the process.
• Balance: aiming for representation of individuals and stakeholder groups from different backgrounds and ideologies within the WANA Forum.

This new process will help integrate works of responsible individuals within WANA who want to make a difference but need to work within a structural framework.  I'm WANA member and you could be too. All you need to have is a will to change and a clear vision of how and what you can do. To get involved, visit www.wanaforum.org, you can send questions and feedback to