Philanthropy in the Arab region: Johnson stresses need for data
Date Published: October 26, 2011
Institutionalized philanthropy is growing and gaining visibility around the world and the Middle East is no exception; however, knowledge around philanthropic giving and other forms of civic participation in the Arab region has historically been sparse. In the last several years a strong research community has begun to emerge and has gained momentum with the Arab Spring developments of the last ten months. Seeking to bring together this growing research community the first Takaful Conference on Arab Philanthropy and Civic Engagement was held this past April in Amman, Jordan. The Conference, jointly organized by the John D. Gerhart Center for Philanthropy and Civic Engagement at American University in Cairo and the Columbia University Middle East Research Center (CUMERC) in Amman, brought together more than 100 citizens, business leaders and public officials from around the world to discuss civic participation and philanthropic giving to, from and within the Arab region.
The John D. Gerhart Center recently released a volume of research papers to disseminate the conference learnings. Selected from among nearly 30 presented at the Takaful Conference, Takaful 2011 includes 10 papers on a variety of subjects ranging from U.S. foundation funding in the Middle East and North Africa to social capital in Islamic and Christian societies. Paula Johnson, who attended the Conference in April, co-authored one of the papers with Dr. Atallah Kuttab, Director General of the Welfare Association and Founding Member of the Arab Foundations Forum. Their paper, “Better Knowledge, Better Giving: The Need for Philanthropic Data in the Arab Region” examines the difficulties in measuring philanthropic capital and reports on some of the international and regional efforts that aim to fill the data gap.
