During the second Mediterranean Development Forum (MDF2), the Gender and Civil Society Coordinator organized a panel on NGO laws which was attended by legal experts and presided by the Moroccan Minister of Justice, Omar Azziman. The meeting triggered the initiation of a dialogue on NGO laws between NGOs and the Moroccan government. The meeting was also a precursor for the two workshops discussed below.

Co-sponsored by the World Bank (WB) and the European Union (EU) and implemented by the Friedrich Naumann Foundation, two regional NGO Laws workshops were held in Amman, Jordan, to study the regulatory framework governing the relationship between government and NGOs and the internal democracy and self-governance of the latter. Seeing as the development and strengthening of civil society and democracy are hindered by the regulations governing the NGOs in the Arab world, the workshops aimed at devising a legal strategy and action plan to improve regulations and practices currently in force. The first workshop, "Regulating Associations in the Arab World," was held on May 9–10, 1999 and attended by eighteen legal experts from nine Arab countries and the Jordanian Minister for Social Development. The objective of the meeting was the formulation of a declaration (known as the Amman Declaration) of criteria and principles regarding the right and freedom of associations in the Arab world.

Held under the patronage of the Jordanian Minister of Justice and building upon the first meeting, the second workshop, "Regulations of Associations in the Arab World—Strategies and Working Plan," was held on June 27–28, 1999 and attended by nine legal experts and seven NGO network representatives from nine Arab countries. Workshop participants agreed to launch the "Arab Initiative for Freedom of Associations," based on the Amman Declaration which sets out a clear set of recommendations: creating a special Arabic/Latin website to be linked to the Bank's NGO site (a Lebanese NGO was chosen to lead this effort) which would be a space to exchange legal and other knowledge on this topic, developing relationships with governments, disseminating the Declaration locally and internationally and further developing its principles, gathering relevant international and regional documents, preparing future studies, and encouraging and developing the legal culture related to associations and their freedom. One of the results that came out of these meetings was a website on Freedom of Association in the Arab world..