February 7, 2008 | Read Time: 5 minutes
Members of Middle Eastern royal families are forming a new organization to help coordinate philanthropic efforts in the region — a move that comes as the Arab world becomes more involved in charitable causes.
The new Arab Center for Philanthropy will educate wealthy donors and corporations about solving social inequities, push the 22 Arab nations across the Middle East and North Africa to adopt policies that foster nonprofit efforts, and support research that examines giving.
The announcement of the center culminated a two-day philanthropy conference held here last month by Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, the prime minister and vice president of the United Arab Emirates and ruler of the kingdom of Dubai.
“You work at an individual level and are unknown to all the people,” he told the 200 or so participants. “Unifying and organizing your work will give you increased financial and social power.”
Queen Rania
The gathering was the first of its kind to bring together Queen Rania of Jordan and other members of Arab royalty with wealthy business executives and nonprofit leaders.
At the meeting, the John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement at the American University in Cairo released a preliminary report on philanthropy in eight Arab countries.
It said giving is rising as personal fortunes and corporate assets increase, thanks in part to the surging price of oil. (The center plans to release the full report in the spring.)
Building on a long tradition of giving, such as zakat, the Muslim equivalent of tithing, a “small, but growing number” of philanthropists are trying to make long-term “social change” similar to what John D. Rockefeller and Andrew Carnegie did in the beginning of the 20th century, says the report. But the report and conference participants also said that Arab philanthropy faced several obstacles that are hampering its development, such as political instability and a cultural preference for giving quietly.
Perhaps the biggest problem is that Arab governments don’t have policies that support nonprofit groups. Egypt, for example, is the Middle East’s epicenter for philanthropic work, with about 15,000 “civil-society organizations” and annual charitable giving equal to almost $1-billion, says the Gerhart center’s report. But the nation continues to cast a wary eye on nonprofit groups. Last year, Egyptian lawmakers introduced a proposal to reduce the tax benefits for foundations, concerned that some of them were businesses in disguise.
In addition to local governments, the Gerhart report says, the Bush administration’s effort to prevent money flowing to Islamic terrorists has also hurt philanthropy. For example, after the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, American officials pressured Saudi Arabia and Kuwait to restrict the way their citizens can give money because of concerns that gifts were supporting Al Qaeda and other Islamic militants.
“International scare tactics have undermined Arab philanthropy,” said Barbara Ibrahim, director of the Gerhart center. The United States “has frightened good Muslims who want to support a cause. They’re all afraid they’re going to be under a microscope.”
‘Culture of Giving’
Despite the difficult environment for giving, fund raisers in the region say they are benefiting from the growing interest in philanthropy. The American University of Beirut, for example, started a campaign seven years ago to bring in $140-million by 2007 to refurbish classrooms and meet other needs. Thanks to the generosity of donors in the region, the school garnered $24-million more than that goal, said Ada H. Porter, a spokeswoman for the university.
When the campaign began, a quarter of the university’s gifts came from Middle Eastern contributors. Today, 59 percent of its gifts are from people living in the region, she said.
“A culture of giving similar to that in the U.S. is starting to catch on in the Middle East,” she said.
But while higher education is benefiting, other causes are not. During the giving conference here, participants said that philanthropists tend to shy away from supporting arts and cultural activities, efforts to clean up the environment, and human rights. Organizations that promote democracy and civil liberties have perhaps the most difficult time finding supporters, given the authoritarian nature of most of the Arab nations, attendees said. However, that may be changing. For instance, the rulers of Qatar recently gave $10-million to set up the Arab Democracy Foundation.
The organization, which is based in Doha, will monitor and publish reports on democracy movements in the Arab nations. One big concern among philanthropists in the region is the growing number of young people in Arab nations, referred to by some at the conference as a “youth tsunami.”
According to the Middle East Youth Initiative, a project run by the Brookings Institution, a think tank in Washington, and the Dubai School of Government, there are 100 million people between the ages of 15 and 29 in the Middle East.
To employ them, 30 million jobs need to be created between now and 2020. The Arab world’s most generous donor, Sheikh Mohammad of Dubai, has promised to help solve the problem. Last year, he pledged $10-billion to start a foundation that, among other causes, will pay for college education for Arab teenagers. According to Nabil Ali Alyousuf, acting chief executive of the Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation, if the Arab world fails to help the wave of young people, it runs the risk of creating a pool of recruits for Muslim terrorists.
“We either educate them,” he said, “or we leave them to poverty, no education, and potential extremism.”
