Advancing Opportunities for Arab Municipal Leaders to Share Interests and Influence Government Policies
An Update from the Injaz Center for Professional Arab Local Governance
The overall objective of the Glazer-funded project remains to further advance Arab municipalities’ (ALAs’) capacities by convening professional committees of the National Council of Arab Mayors (NCAM), comprised of municipal officials and other stakeholders, in order to share common challenges and opportunities and to formulate government policy recommendations that are responsive to these challenges and opportunities. 
Injaz will retain its responsibility for leading these efforts through work with four NCAM committees:

1. The Education Committee
2. The Environment Committee
3. The Small Businesses, Entrepreneurship, and Platforms for Economic Development Committee
4. The Arab Local Authorities Committee
5. The Fire-fighting and Rescue Committee

Since the last update the work of the committees has been focused on:

1. The lessons learned from the challenges and successes of the five-year Resolution 922 government plan
2. Providing constructive, informed input through the NCAM to key government ministries as the government formulates its next five-year plan through the preparation of a series of policy papers and extensive meetings

Regarding the second point, considerable effort has been placing pressure to impress upon the government that the next plan must incorporate on-the-ground lessons learned, and not employ the “top-down” administration in play during the implementation of Resolution 922.  The disconnect between the reality of Arab municipalities’ capacities to implement Resolution 922 and the government’s ambitions for its implementation is thought to lie at the heart of many of the challenges that were encountered during Resolution 922’s implementation.
In recent months, the NCAM and its committees have worked tirelessly in channeling these real-world lessons to the government planners as they formulate priorities, establish benchmarks, and allocate designated funds.  The primary method that has been used to convey this information from the NCAM to government ministries has been through the preparation of a series of policy papers which articulate data analysis and resulting recommendations. The following is a brief summary of primary objectives and activities that have taken since our last report in April 2021: