Civil society has played a central role in addressing some of the greatest injustices and in building societies in the MENA region, it has also played a prominent role in critiquing, establishing and strengthening discourses. We cannot speak of mobilization successes in the region without highlighting the role played by CSOs and activists.

The Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) and the Innovation for Change MENA Hub (I4C MENA) commissioned this research to analyse the perception of the MENA public on civil society actors in the region. The research was carried out during October-November 2020 under the WeActTogether campaign project, managed by the Gulf Centre for Human Rights (GCHR) in partnership with the Innovation for Change Middle East and North Africa Hub (I4C MENA). The work is being managed in the framework of the civil society campaign project, under the MENA Hub objective to act as an advocate for the MENA region’s civic space and human rights issues and develop adapted evidence-based resources and tools for effective campaigning and advocacy.

The project began in June 2020 and runs until 2022. Under this project, GCHR and I4C MENA and a number of partners are managing the WeActTogether Campaign, of a key message that ‘civil society makes a huge contribution to our societies, and that human rights are an essential right’. The project will shed light on contributions where civil society has excelled in advocating for rights and freedoms while highlighting both the value of civil society as a means for people to express their views and demands.

As part of the campaign, there was a need to identify and research the MENA public’s perception of civil society.