Our mission is to activate common citizenship to inspire social accountability, ownership, and strategy in the reform of social protection.

Our vision is to foster just and equitable communities.

To actualize our mission and vision, our program interventions will aim to:

1. Promote common citizenship and independent community activity through the leadership of cross-regional, cross-confessional volunteers.
2. Produce and disseminate hard, evidence-based research and data on local and national socio-economic topics
3. Stimulate and catalyze advocacy, accountability, and policy-reform on socio- economic issues nationwide

The objectives of the program interventions are to therefore:

1. Reduce the inequality gap by promoting stable institutions and programs for social protection and accountability.
2. Promoting the adoption of civic duties and norms, spreading a culture of ownership and common citizenship.
3. Increasing the opportunities of cross-fertilization between communities for successful citizen-centered initiatives.
4. Providing space, knowledge, and tools for individual and group discussion, networking, collaboration, and coalition building to bolster advocacy and socio-economic policy reform processes.

Constructing a Common Citizenship

Social accountability is commonly understood as direct citizen engagement and oversight of the state in an attempt to monitor, ensure enforcement of, and influence policy creation.4 To help foster social accountability as an innate part of Lebanese- citizen culture, Lebanese society must develop a sense of “common belonging,” otherwise known as common citizenship. In practice, this entails legal and structural accommodation of diversity from the state, a dedication to justice, a shared sense of loyalty to the political community and, of course, a multi-faceted common culture. To achieve these components of common citizenship and bridge the inequality gap, MAAN supports and strongly encourages:

• Citizen Education
Targeting youth from all regions, and specifically calling for stakeholders in rural areas, participants will engage in a variety of seminars meant to increase civil and political knowledge, challenge the cultural status quo, and allow youth to not only critically examine their cultural surroundings, but also delve into introspection by questioning the role they play as citizens in a given society. As such, seminars will address topics of accountability on an individual, communal, and state level, including subjects such as sectarianism, stewardship, good governance, etc. These seminars will be open to the public and will take place on weekends, striving to primarily attract university students and young professionals. As basic topics are covered and participants “graduate” from fundamentals, a second tier of seminars will be designed and given to participants on socio-economic rights and issues in Lebanon, such as social security, taxes, electricity policy, waste policy, budgeting, etc. Leading participants that would like to engage deeper on such topics will have the option of forming a core group. This group will attend closed workshops on building leadership skills, investigative research, advocacy, public mobilization, negotiation, etc., deepening networks and solidarities.

• Provision of Resources
Having a greater sense of agency through MAAN’s citizen education platforms, participants will now be armed with the tools and resources needed to acquire in-depth and practical knowledge on socio-economic issues to help create an agenda or action plan for reform. These tools include already existing knowledge on past collective actions, public budgets, monitoring mechanisms, action research, etc.

• Creating Space
Space to discuss socio-political issues and grievances will be created to ensure free speech, nurture networks, and encourage mobilization and advocacy. With the intention of fostering an emotive environment, space will allow individuals to build campaigns as well as more connected movements and stronger coalitions for change. The creation of space is not limited to physical environments and may be inclusive of technological resources and social platforms to expand opportunities for open dialogue.

• Mentorship
Youth will have access to a network of civil society experts and practitioners for consultation on socio-economic issues, tools, research, advocacy, campaigning, etc. This network of fellows will be comprised of both local and international practitioners, academics, and activists, who have worked in the field of socio-economic justice. Mentors will also strengthen youth capacity through coaching and skills building workshops with the aim of supporting young activists to be more strategic and targeted in their campaigning.