With the first session of the National Dialogue kicks off on Tuesday, the public is riveting its eyes on the outcome of this important national debate aimed at ironing out the differences, if any, among the various segments of the society.
On the day one of the proceedings to be held at the Shaikh Isa Cultural Centre, there are four sessions will be held simultaneously.
The National Dialogue sessions are scheduled to be held three times a week, during Sunday, Tuesday and Thursday evening from 5:00 pm to 9:00 pm.
The sessions will begin with the political theme where political issues will be addressed, while the economic session will look into the reality of competitiveness of the national economy and ways to boost it. The issues of women and children’s rights are to be debated under the legal theme, and youth affairs will be discussed under the social theme.
It is expected that 60 representatives of political societies, NGOs, labour unions and public figures, in addition to four ministers representing the government each session will participate.
Under the political theme, the participants will discuss political societies, raising several issues relevant to the subject of sectarianism in politics, the advantages and constraints of working in light of the current political associations law, the development of conditions of establishing political associations, as well as key issues related to the development and financing of political societies, and their external and international communication. Upon concluding the discussion of all these views on the aforementioned topics, debates will take place in future meetings with a new sub-theme within the main political theme.
As for the economic theme, delegates will start their sessions with the issue of the national economy’s competitiveness and ways of strengthening it, as well as discussing, the impact of the financial crisis on the national economy. The session will also discuss other issues under the economic theme, such as regional and international competitiveness in Bahrain, diversifying sources of the national income, real estate development in addition to development of the tourism sector.
During the legal session, participants will also discuss children’s rights in the Kingdom, reasons behind politicisation of children and ways of mitigating them, a review of the challenges faced by people with special needs and developing their care. This session will also discuss issues related to the advantages of issuing the family law for women and the factors impeding the issuance of the law, in addition to the challenges faced by Bahraini women.
The first session of the social theme will begin by discussing youth issues, such as: the performance of official institutions concerned with youth, the reality and challenges of associations and youth centres, youth and politics between restriction and regulation and the economic empowerment of young people.
The Executive Committee of the National Dialogue has laid down a preliminary schedule to organise the sessions covering the first and second week of the dialogue. There will be an opportunity to extend the time period required to discuss any of the sub-themes in the case of not concluding the discussion of all views listed in the meeting.
The Coordinating Committee includes 15 members that coordinate all meetings of the four themes.