Resource center

Organisation Website : portal in english in brief : "ADR's mission is to empower the marginalized and help them make a better living through economic and social development projects.
Our specific objectives are:
Give access to training, tools, information and financial services.
Give better access to labor market and help to set income generating projects.
Encourage partnership and decentralized cooperation.
Projects are designed and implemented according to the wishes and needs of the local population. "

Organisation website:
The Muslim Women's League is a non-profit Muslim American organization working to implement the values of Islam and thereby reclaim the status of women as free, equal and vital contributors to society

Project Webpage:
Promoting gender EQUALITY between MEN and WOMEN in the Euro-Mediterranean:
Gender equality is a fundamental objective for the States in the Euro-Mediterranean area. They see it as a vector of democracy and peace in a region which aspires to coexistence, stability and prosperity and where the emancipation of women is regarded as a factor of development for society as a whole.

Organisation website:
Platform profile available in 3 languages. ( English, Arabic and Dansk). In brief : "WoMen Dialogue is a platform for cooperation and debate on gender and women's rights issues, and for the exchange of knowledge between Danish and Arab civil society. It is provided by KVINFO, the Danish Centre for Information on Gender, Equality and Ethnicity. The site primarily informs about joint partnership activities, but also presents relevant news from Denmark and the Middle East on legal reform processes and community development related to gender, equality and women's rights. "

Project webpage:
The Permanent Arab Court To Resist Violence Against Women is a symbolic popular court that aims at fighting all forms of violence practiced against women in Arab societies.
The Court was established by a group of Arab NGOs and distinguished personalities gathered in Rabat , Morocco on 30th November and 1st December 1996. The main purpose of the Court is to put an end to the intensifying and multifaceted violence against women. This need has become obviously clear by a public hearing on violence against women that was held in Beirut in June 1995, and was the first of its kind in the Arab world.

Organisation website:
The National Organization for Women (NOW) is the largest organization of feminist activists in the United States. NOW has 500,000 contributing members and 550 chapters in all 50 states and the District of Columbia.

Since its founding in 1966, NOW's goal has been to take action to bring about equality for all women. NOW works to eliminate discrimination and harassment in the workplace, schools, the justice system, and all other sectors of society; secure abortion, birth control and reproductive rights for all women; end all forms of violence against women; eradicate racism, sexism and homophobia; and promote equality and justice in our society.

Project webpage:
Project summary of the IDRC project by Nadine Haddad El-Hajj : In brief "One greywater (GW) treatment-and-use project in Lebanon has changed the beneficiaries' lives in many ways, providing recycled water for gardening and improving the beneficiaries' socioeconomic status. In Tannoura, West Bekaa, Lebanon – a remote rural town of the Bekaa Valley – where phase II of the International Development Research Centre (IDRC) funded Greywater Treatment and Use Project is being implemented (2006–2008), female beneficiaries have been more affected than their male counterparts by this project."

Project webapge:
UNDP focuses on gender equality and women's empowerment not only as human rights, but also because they are a pathway to achieving the Millennium Development Goals and sustainable development.

Organisation website:
The mission of the International Museum of Women (I.M.O.W.) is to value the lives of women around the world.
I.M.O.W. is a groundbreaking social change museum that inspires global action, connects people across borders and transforms hearts and minds by amplifying the voices of women worldwide through global online exhibitions, history, the arts and cultural programs that educate, create dialogue and build community. With its unique focus on cultural change, I.M.O.W. advances the human right to gender equity worldwide.

Project webpage:
In 1996, Lebanon ratified, with reservations, an international covenant regarding women's rights known as the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women. This Convention sets out, in a comprehensive, legally binding form, internationally accepted principles on the rights of women. It further commits States Parties to take all appropriate measures, to ensure the full development and advancement of women and to guarantee them the enjoyment of the fundamental rights and freedoms to which they are entitled, on a basis of equality with men. Moreover, the Convention requires that Governments work to eliminate discrimination against women in public life as well as in private life. Indeed, according to the Convention, women must be as free as men to make choices not only in political and legal sphere, but also in such areas as marriage, the home and family life in general.

To implement women's rights, as stated in the Convention, the establishment of official and non-governmental monitoring mechanisms (national and international) helps ensure that goals are being reached and that legal rights and duties of women are recognized, understood and enforced.

The Lebanese government submitted, in 1999, its initial report regarding the progress made on the implementation of the Convention in its country, to the international monitoring treaty body known as the Committee on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against women (CEDAW Committee). Non-governmental organizations are also encouraged to submit a parallel report in conformity with the guidelines set by the CEDAW Committee.

In this respect, the Lebanese NGO Forum, an umbrella organization of various NGOs distributed geographically throughout the Lebanese territory has set a permanent monitoring mechanism entitled Women's Rights Monitor.

This project aims at helping NGOs monitor women's rights and implement the Convention on the Elimination of All Forms of Discrimination against Women in Lebanon by establishing a platform for co-ordination that will, at the national and regional levels:

- Provide information about the Convention and the CEDAW Committee

- Provide guidelines in view of helping NGOs to write their report to the CEDAW Committee

- Establish a set of baseline data regarding women's rights in Lebanon in accordance with the guidelines of the CEDAW

- Elaborate a permanent report regarding women's situation in Lebanon, based on the compiled data

- Establish a bibliography on the subject of women's rights and facilitate the exchange of information and documentation

- Provide a mailing list of participating NGOs