On June 12, 2013, the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, together with the Arab Fund for Social and Economic Development, held a regional conference in Kuwait City to consider the role of citizenship education in the Arab transitions. The conference brought together 75 participants from across the Arab world (including Kuwait, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan, Tunisia, Palestine, Oman, Yemen, and Egypt) as well as scholars from the United States, Europe, and Canada. Representatives from international and regional organizations, including the International Association for the Evaluation of Educational Achievement (IEA), also participated and provided input into the conference framework.
The Kuwait Conference on the Education of Future Citizens is part of a long-term project on education for citizenship in the Arab world that was launched by the Carnegie Middle East Center in June 2011. The project is an initiative to increase understanding and promote solutions to the challenges facing the Arab world in the areas of education reform and citizenship education. Focused on research, analysis, and outreach, the project seeks to generate debate and discussion of steps to strengthen citizenship education in the Arab world with a goal of influencing teaching and learning in kindergarten through twelfth grade (K–12) education.
