Capacity Building in Syria

Published: Nov 3, 2016 Reading time: 7 minutes Share:

What is People in Need’s capacity building programme and why is capacity building so important in Syria?

“Because of the crisis, the airstrikes and bombardment, the battles between conflicting forces and the absence of Government institutions, civilian infrastructure in opposition areas has suffered greatly. Homes, markets, schools, hospitals and even mosques and bakeries have been damaged. Not only has infrastructure been damaged but Syria’s human power has also been drained. So many of our country’s well-educated and professionals have left Syria now. To respond to these challenges, People in Need launched a capacity building programme in order to rebuild people’s capacities and ensure that services to the communities in opposition areas can continue” explains PIN’s Capacity Building Assistant in Syria.

Since October 2013, People in Need (PIN) has been working to strengthen the capacities and cooperation of local authorities in order to improve the delivery of basic services to the local populations. Without well-established governance structures in place in opposition controlled areas of Syria, more support is required for Local Councils (LCs) and Civil Society Organizations (CSOs) so that they can independently secure funds to finance activities and provide their communities with essential services such as waste management, maintenance and rehabilitation, health and education.

One of PIN’s capacity building projects involves training LCs and CSOs to generate and implement useful and well-managed projects in the community. The aim of the project is to build the capacities of local organizations so they are better able to assess the needs of their communities and develop and implement projects which will address these needs and improve people’s living conditions. This sustainable and impactful project is supported by funding from the European Union.

The Project

Phase One: Training

From October to December 2015, PIN provided training in the fields of needs assessment, fundraising, organizational skills, and project cycle management to more than 80 representatives from 36 LCs and CSOs. During these trainings, the organization representatives learned how to better identify the needs of the population; how to write project proposals and how to go about implementing them effectively.

Following this initial round of training, the LCs and CSOs were asked to submit a project proposal to PIN for review. Successful organizations would receive further training in project implementation, transparency and accountability in addition to receiving funding to implement their proposed project.

Phase Two: Further Training and Project Implementation

After review, 13 projects were selected for implementation. These projects included providing equipment for services such as a drinking water station and medical centres, as well as rehabilitating schools, sewage systems and a bakery.

Once the projects were selected a second round of tailor-made, project-specific trainings began. The representatives of the successful LCs and CSOs returned for the second round of training in February-April 2016.During this round, local representatives learned how to improve their communication with their respective communities; as well as how to further improve their organizational, administrative and procurement skills.

The training was split between in-class sessions and mentoring sessions.

The in-class training covered topics such as communication, advocacy and negotiation skills, awareness raising and social cooperation, project management in development, and financial management.

The mentoring sessions coincided with the implementation of the projects so that trainees could directly apply their knowledge in the field during the implementation and so that the trainers, together with PIN’s Capacity Building team, could provide guidance and support to the organizations on an individual basis. During this training period, PIN’s Capacity Building team and trainers went to the project sites to give advice to the local organizations and together with them monitor and assess the project’s progress and implementation.

As part of the mentoring sessions, the CSOs and LCs were also encouraged to suggest awareness raising strategies and events in the communities. As such meetings with community representatives were arranged in addition to a coordination meeting for all the organizations participating in the project. This coordination meeting aimed to facilitate discussion of common challenges and best practices, as well as facilitate further cooperation between the organizations.

Case Studies

Termanin Bakery, Idlib

One of the implemented projects involved completing building works on a bakery in Idlib. This project was particularly remarkable as Termanin Association, the organization that came up with the project idea, managed to secure funds from not only from PIN but also from other donors. Abdul-Karim, a member of this town Local Council, explains why they selected this bakery for their project and the project’s resulting impact on the community.

“At the end of the course organized by PIN, we decided that our project should be to complete the building works on a newly built, but unfinished, bakery. The grant we received covered the costs of plastering works, paving the ground, ceramic ware and installing doors and windows. This helped reduce the cost and burden imposed on the Local Council. Before this bakery was in service, there was only one private bakery and the price of bread was so high that we used to buy bread from bakeries outside the village. There were so many advantages to opening this bakery including the fact that it offered new job opportunities, saved on the costs of bread transportation and of course produced high-quality bread.”

Ibrahim Bakkour, who coordinates the work of PIN’s Capacity Building team in Syria, and Ali Masri describe the impact of this European Union supported project as a whole.

“The biggest added value of the project was that the LCs realized the need to involve and consult the people from the community much more than they did before,” saysIbrahim. Agreeing, Ali adds:

“This project has provided valuable services to a lot of villages and towns; we have supported many villages in ways that were specific to the needs of the population. Personally, the project I am most proud of is the rehabilitation of a physiotherapy centre in the village of Batbu and providing it with equipment.”

Physiotherapy Centre in Batbu, Aleppo

This physiotherapy centre which Ali mentions opened in January 2016 so that those who had suffered injuries as a result of the conflict as well as those living with pre-existing conditions, such as polio and cerebral palsy, could have access to much needed psychological and physical therapy.

Nour Bakkour, the Administrative Manager at Ata’a Charity, a Civil Society Organization which works in the village of Batbu, took part in the trainings offered by PIN and put forward a proposal to support this physiotherapy centre.

“I took the course done by People in Need and I learnt many useful things. We learnt how to present a correct project proposal after doing a needs assessment for the targeted village. Our proposal was to equip the physiotherapy centre in the village with modern and necessary equipment which the staff had much difficulty working without. The budget was enough for this project and we had the approval and opportunity to go on with this.”

Hussein Abdul-Jalil, the head of this physiotherapy centre, describes the impact the project had on the centre:

“Medical staff here suffered a lot in the first few months after the centre was opened in January this year. Much of the medical equipment was not available and staff were always under pressure. They were only able to see a few patients every day because of this. Two trainees from Ata’a Charity had attended trainings organized by People in Need in the previous months and proposed a project to purchase the equipment needed for the centre so that it might operate and function better. A month later, after PIN paid a series of visits to the centre and after deep and extensive research, coordination and collaboration, this project was launched. Through the PIN grant, we managed to purchase nine very useful pieces of equipment and install them in the centre, in addition to some other things like a generator and a solar power panel.

As a result, the number of patients seeking treatment at the centre has increased remarkably; it rose from about fifteen patients receiving treatments every day in the first month to more than forty in the last few months. The majority of those people come from nearby areas; Western Aleppo countryside, Idlib countryside and IDP camps. Some, however, come from remote towns and villages, as this kind of centre is still not very common.”

All 13 projects were successfully implemented by the middle of June and PIN continues to receive reports about activities related to the completed projects or the use of the equipment provided. In the future, PIN would like to further support these 13 and other successful organizations to allow them to address the needs of their communities through implementation of meaningful and sustainable projects. As part of two other PIN projects funded by the European Union and Swiss Development Cooperation, the Capacity Building Programme has also trained and provided sub-grants to education authorities in villages where PIN supports schools, and has been working with the water offices of the LCs and municipalities to rehabilitate water, waste and sanitation facilities.