We are pleased to announce the 12 final alliances selected to receive support from the “Cultural Alliances” component. Each Alliance is made up of 3 cultural entities.

Since the beginning of the year, the jury composed of Culture Professional Christiane Dabdoub Nasser (Palestine); cultural director Heba elCheikh (Egypt) and researcher and cultural actor Moez Mrabet (Tunisia) have embarked on a dynamic process by reviewing, evaluating and meeting twice to select the 12 alliances that will benefit from the Cultural Alliances component.

At the end of the selection process, the members of the jury issued the following declaration:

“The concept notes were generally compatible with the programme’s guidelines. They reflected a serious development component that would contribute to supporting an effective cultural ecosystem in the targeted countries.

This experience was enriching for us as jurors on many levels. It showed  that civil society in the region is making good progress in addressing and overcoming  the setbacks that the region is witnessing, economically, politically as a result of the global pandemic. It also confirmed that many organisations have  a high level of creativity and commitment and an ability to recognise their vulnerabilities and the challenges that may impede  their growth and prosperity. Finally, the arguments in the proposals show that alliances consider partnership and networking to be essential components for healthy competitiveness and growth.  

Discussions around the collaboration concept notes were comprehensive and the evaluators pulled-in their knowledge of the context to achieve a reasonable consensus based on the criteria developed by the programme team. 

The jurors took into account the following when evaluating  the applications while maintaining transparency to ensure the best for the programme as a whole:

• Creativity and innovation were important levers, and quite a few concept notes  reflect both in terms of content, approach, and management. 

• Strong partnerships that reflect serious collaborations where all three partners can benefit and grow and potentially have higher impact.

• Focus on the institutional development of partner entities which constitutes an important component of the project activities.

• The Alliance’s contribution to its ecosystem, which is fundamental to the programme and which ensures a holistic understanding of the many stakes in cultural development.  

• Inclusiveness: all countries in the region were to be represented and collaboration concept notes took into consideration geographic distribution as well as wide representation at stakeholder level. 

• Efforts were also made to have different sectors represented – music, theatre, digital arts, etc.”

The Jury members wish the selected Alliances all the best in their journey of discovering and building partnerships based on solidarity, empathy, collaboration, and sharing of knowledge and resources to reach the results they aspire to.