Overview of POGAR Website

Welcome to www.pogar.org the website of the Programme on Governance in the Arab Region (POGAR). POGAR’s mission is to assist government and non-government actors, civil society organizations whether international or national, as well as the public at large to improve governance in the Arab states/region.

Our site is a resource to support and sustain that mission. Our goal is to create the biggest online library in the region for our users in the Arab region as well as the rest of the world. We archive in this e-library state of the art reports, legal texts and documents, statistics, news, and many other resources that fall under the umbrella of governance. Users can also find reports published by POGAR’s team, newsletters and electoral calendars, as well as publications available on or after activities organized by POGAR and its partners, such as; activity reports, studies, speeches, presentations, recommendations, and list of participants in addition to other arrays of publications depending on the organized events.

What distinguishes us from other sites is that www.pogar.org goes beyond such material. The Pogar Knowledge Management Team works daily on scanning and capturing the latest and most valuable resources and analysis tackling the latest information whether it be political, civil society issues or rule of law as long as it has an impact on the Arab region. Our website researchers regularly update this e-library to provide the most important material available on the net in order to provide to our users easier visibility and access to all information produced by other key think tanks, governmental as well as non-governmental organizations, international/national institutions, and UN agencies. The website also serves as an archive for all this material, for we believe it is important to preserve the limited information available on the Arab region.

Our homepage has general, as well as specialized and focused topics of interest. We have provided many browsing and searching options through our pages and subpages to make the needed information more reachable to our user’s interests.

POGAR website covers all 22 Arab countries although the quantity of information can reveal some imbalance between these countries due to the lack of available online information/resources in some of these countries. The website also provides information components, and selected pre-searches; materials grouped for easier access. Users can find a rich variety of tools and resources that will help them understand the region:

• Links to primary documents: conventions, UN resolutions, Secretary-General Reports, constitutions, laws, ministries etc.
• Links to background material: reports, analysis that delve deeply into an issue from other institutions, and government agencies.
• Links to news coverage from media sources around the world.

Help (How to Use This Site)

Our links and resources are organized by topic, by country, by provider and by type, and all of these categories are cross-indexed. Click on our top fixed menu to navigate by topic, by country or by resource type the drop down buttons at the top of the page.

Users can also navigate using the left-column menu of the page using it to constrict the search to a narrower look at our resources. We also provide a search engine powered by Google for a keyword, wider or more comprehensive search.

The site also has special features like an up-to-date electoral calendar noting the forthcoming elections in the region, an Arab parliamentary database, as well as Arab laws databases etc. Our team is constantly creating new tools and sections to make our users experience easier, more efficient and informative. For any of your comments or suggestions, do not hesitate to contact us, our contact information is available on the bottom of our homepage www.pogar.org.

We welcome all your comments and suggestions.

We hope that you will take advantage of this wealth of resources and enjoy your web surfing on www.pogar.org.

Web Management of UNDP-POGAR and related websites

UNDP-POGAR is supervised by Dr. Adel Abdellatif, Chief Regional Programme Division, Regional Bureau for Arab States, United Nations Development Programme.

The UNDP-POGAR Knowledge Management Team (KMT) is responsible for the web-development of POGAR and related websites. The team is composed of:
- Yasmine Kaidbey is a Research Associate responsible for POGAR’s data collection, documents gathering, data entry, and other tasks
- Abed Khooli our IT specialist, web developer and knowledge specialist is technically responsible for POGAR and its satellite websites.
- Elizabeth Bouri is the KMT Senior Knowledge Management Advisor.

Some of POGAR’s projects resulted in the creation of websites that focus closely on specialized areas of research such as Public Prosecution and Strengthening Arab Parliaments.

The KMT team, in coordination with colleagues working in these projects and focal person devoted to each website, works in the development and maintenance of these websites:

-Hani Anouti is the focal person for the Arab Human Development Reports – Series II (Arab AHDR II) website
- Zahra Bazzi is the focal person for the Arab Niaba (public prosecution) website.
- Sara Salman is the focal person of the Arab Parliaments and also responsible to update the Arab parliaments’ fact sheets and political parties’ databases.
- Nour Bejjani is the focal person responsible for the routine update of the Arab Elections Newsletter, Arab Elections Calendar and Coverage databases
- Dany Wazen is POGAR’s LAN manager who provides local technical support and troubleshooting to all colleagues and is instrumental in the production of presentational CDs.
- The colleagues of POGAR’s Programme Support Unit provide all necessary logistics and financial support and
- The United Nations Office for Project Services (UNOPS) is the UN executing agency for UNDP-POGAR.