Many civil society organizations (CSOs) founded between 1990 to the early 2000s were members-based and short-lived due to a lack of volunteers and waning interest from members. Many CSOs that remained active throughout these years, including those CSOs established post-2005, were donor-driven and found themselves expanding their original mandates to encompass the values and constantly shifting visions of international donor agencies to ensure that first and foremost the CSO remains sustainable under the financial protection of such donors. This, coupled with the fact that advocacy campaigns were often organized and highly compromised of the same core group of civil society actors, reflected a shift away from independent politics in Lebanese society.

The existence of MAAN is a direct response to the need for socio-economic justice in Lebanon. Socio-economic grievances have rarely been placed at the center of advocacy programs; instead, trade and labor unions have championed their own respective socio-economic causes. Unfortunately, these unions are often manipulated by internal party politics, rendering them limited in power, and at times, allowing them to act as part of political parties’ armories. As such, socio-economic policy reform, such as those related to taxation, trade policy, social security, unemployment, and more that were raised during the latest mobilizations, have been nearly stagnant in the last few decades, and are utilized to benefit the political elite and their parties. In order to take ownership of these issues and begin to bridge the inequality gap, citizens must be held accountable for their rights and the institutions in which they are governed by.

Citizen accountability is twofold, requiring both answerability and enforceability. Answerability is one’s right to receive a response from governing institutions, and in turn, his or her obligation to answer to these institutions. Enforceability compliments this by ensuring action and access to mechanisms and resources for redress. Both these components can be best achieved through participatory processes, rights-based approach, and by cultivating a culture of civic engagement and activism.3

Born at a time where international organizations are directing their attention to social equality, accountability, and governance, our Socio-economic Justice Initiative (acronymed MAAN for Arabic, meaning “together”) will target citizens, especially youth, throughout Lebanon, focusing on rural and remote areas, to build a popular, public movement advocating for socio-economic policy benefiting all citizens, rather than clientelistic networks and the elite. This will help support the existing grassroots youth activist in guiding their movement and strengthen their capacity in engaging with policy processes on the national level and will counter other current initiatives focusing on social accountability to benefit smaller and specific groups of society. This will be done through the provision of space, knowledge, resources, and tools, including seminars on the basics of civil society values and common citizenship, technical workshops, monitoring instruments, and a network of mentors. MAAN will also concentrate on building investigative research skills as part of building advocacy campaigns.