Overarching objectives concerning the management of HLRN member relationships across the MENA region:

	Clarify and strengthen mutual HLRN and HIC memberships and mutually supportive relations;
	Manage membership in close communication with constituents;
	Assess member needs and assets (to identify capacity-building opportunities);
	Identify regional members as reference points for fellow members to tap specialized skills and expertise needed (especially to integrate housing and land rights);
	Induct members for both HLRN and HIC;
	Contribute to the development and strengthening of HIC and its General Secretariat;
	Establish, maintain and build constructive alliances with other civil society organizations and networks supporting the realization of HRAH and ESC rights in general.

HLRN promotes and manages membership in Habitat International Coalition in cooperation with the HIC General Secretariat (Santiago, Chile). This involves collaboration with HIC-GS to operationalize the unified membership form and centralize the membership database system. Naturally, this coordination also extends to the other HIC structures to ensure ease and uniformity, as well as greater member service. Better membership management is key to the evolution of the former Housing and Land Rights Committee into a member service-oriented Housing and Land Rights Network, with membership having moved closer to the center of programming and taking on a greater portion of the program activity.

The membership management indicator for 2004-06 is to increase HIC member inscriptions in HLRN by five active members each year from the MENA region, and to realize significantly increased engagement in HLRN activities and joint/collective member collaboration by those in the region already inscribed as HIC members.

Assessing and Serving Member Needs

The HLRN Coordinator, MENA Program Officers and regional center (Cairo) develop relations with, and retain programmatic knowledge of HLRN members. The MENA Regional Program Officers maintains a profile of every HLRN member with special notes on their needs, interests, but also the particular skills, strengths and experiences, as well as records actions in cooperation with HLRN and its members. In 2005, HLRN's MENA Program plans to convene regional members for the first time in order to share HLRN methodologies and to conduct a biennial strategic plan.

During 2004-06, HLRN will seek also to identify "reference points," which are members able and willing to serve fellow members and the HLRN Offices with advice and technical assistance in particular areas of specialization. These efforts and the resulting networking systems will ensure the engagement of HLRN members and attract appropriate new participants to the Network.

The HLRN websites have been designed to provide members with privileged access to the members section of the website that contains "Member News," where they can post items through the Coordination Office, and a closed discussion "Forum." The website also give them access to the "Membership Database" that contains the members registration forms, but also allows every member to survey the membership using search criteria to find other members with complementary experiences, programs and skills to share. Membership also entitles organizations to receive the periodical, "al-Maw'il" ["Habitat"], which includes especially relevant information for members in the MENA region.

HLRN-organized training events (as part of the capacity building Goal 2) also are meant to create the context to foster new partnerships, while developing the economic, social and cultural rights (ESCR) culture among the members and their partners. These activities also attract new HLRN-HIC members and-as any training opportunity-also facilitates assessment of the participants' further needs. Thus, member services and member management go hand in hand. Training opportunities for civil society organizations from Iraq, for example, provides an effective means for reaching out a region historically isolated and neglected.

HIC-MENA also seeks to play a constructive role in the emerging Arab Social Forum by encouraging member participation and by offering a channel for access to experiences of social movements elsewhere. Within the MENA region, too, HLRN's participation in the global HIC "Social Production of Habitat" Project (see below) has provided the opportunity for members to identify local characteristics of collective action as a basis for an indigenous MENA "social movement" culture, whereby local communities pose-and implement-solutions to shared problems. This has provided a window for observers and actors inside and outside the MENA region to appreciate the universal features of social movements in the MENA countries, as well as a way to link and coordinate this phenomenon within a HRAH framework.

MENA Regional Networking Forums 2004-6

The Coalition Level: Constructive Collaboration within HIC

Implementing its institutional obligation and moral commitment to the building and renewal of HIC, part of HLRN's contribution to HIC governance is based on a protocol presented to the HIC Board (August 2003), clarifying mutual relations of HIC members to HLRN and HLRN members to HIC.

HLRN objectives within the wider Coalition (HIC):
Support MENA members to interact effectively with all HIC organs;
Integrate MENA members and region as an organic part of HIC.

The goal of "network, coalition, and alliance building development and maintenance" has both external and internal dimensions. At the internal level, in his role as HLRN Coordinator, the MENA Coordinator currently bears obligations as a HIC Board member through 2005, as well as serving as HIC Board treasurer (as of August 2003).

The MENA region has long been neglected within the wider Coalition, with the exception of the program of cooperation with partners in Israel/Palestine developed since 1991. The HIC-MENA officers and staff seek opportunities to integrate the diverse experience of housing and land rights promotion in the MENA region to the general membership of HIC. Functionally, MENA already forms a distinct region within HIC members, based on shared culture and/or language.

The HIC-MENA officers and staff seek opportunities to engage MENA's HLRN members within HIC, as well as engage the wider HIC membership and structures more practically with the housing and land rights issues of the MENA region. Several programmatic activities at the level of HLRN Global level also contribute to this objective, including not least the HLRN "Urgent Action" system. The HIC-wide "Social Production of Habitat" Project (2004-05) (described below) offers a special opportunity to integrate the housing rights framework into the methodology of presenting the local social-production processes.

The process of members needs and interests assessment to be met by other HLRN members with their specializations (engineers, researchers, lawyers), who will take benefit from the HLRN housing and land rights framework. This will help encourage reference points to emerge from the larger Coalition, but especially for the purpose of new mutual and reciprocal support in the MENA region, to collaborate as strategic opportunities arise.