Foundation for Future 
Opens for Business

The Forum for the Future, held in Dubai this week, has hosted workshops and seminars dealing with education, democratic and legal reforms, as well as women’s empowerment, human rights and environment. One session on Thursday debated the role of the media in supporting democratic reform. Many speakers expressed concern not only for government censorship, but especially self censorship. However, Gulf media experts, including police media advisor Ali Kasim, called for better regulation of the influx of foreign satellite channels, blamed for the erosion of culture, values and misinformation.

Ahmad Khoroud, a Tunisian media expert, said democratic reform could not occur without media freedom. While the electronic media, such as blogging on the Internet, was seen as possibly the source of information least restricted from censorship, Abdullah Al Shamsi, professor with Emirates University, said only two days ago a blog was blocked. Francesco Rosa, Chief Operating Officer with Foundation for the Future, a non-profit grants organization and unrelated to the forum, said projects that tackled media freedom and the scope of other issues discussed at the forum, could avail of grants with the organisation. The independent foundation only became fully operational in March this year and is based in Jordan. “We’re open for business. We’ve received 100 proposals and 25 have been approved. There is no ceiling for the grants but it must be rational and set out in a proposal. And our scope is very broad.” Proposals had not yet been received from the UAE, but Rosa attributed this to a lack of awareness about the new organization and said the visit to Dubai had been used to establish links in the region.

zoe@khaleejtimes.com