Weekly Update: MENA

Iraq – On June 27, CIPE Iraq Program Coordinators Mohammed Alauldeen and Thabit Al Safi participated in a preparatory workshop organized by the Iraqi Institute for Economic Reform (IIER) leading up to IIER’s conference “Towards Building a Private Sector Strategy in Iraq.” The conference is meant to discuss the development of a more unified voice for Iraq’s private sector. Former CIPE partner the Iraqi Businessmen Union and other leading business associations contributed to the workshop. Alauldeen and Safi shared CIPE’s experience developing provincial business agendas and emphasized the importance of building private sector consensus to amplify its voice and make it accessible to policymakers.

West Bank – On June 27, as part of a CIPE-funded project to strengthen good corporate and democratic governance, the Palestine Governance Institute (PGI) hosted a workshop in Ramallah to discuss regulatory gaps and contradictions between the existing Company Law and the recently formulated corporate governance code. The workshop attracted 18 participants, which included corporate governance experts and senior legal advisers in key stakeholder institutions. After discussing several loopholes in the Company Law that may undermine sound corporate governance, the majority favored introducing legal amendments to require mandatory compliance with the principles and practices of the code.