Meet Nadine Merhi, BALADI CAP’s CSO Specialist. Nadine has a Masters Degree in Business Administration majoring in Management, and more than 7 years of experience working with NGOs. She has led more than 20 projects funded by various donors such as the EU, USAID, MEPI, the Canadian Embassy, UNDEF, among others.
Nadine loves traveling, exercising, and volunteer work. She joined BALADI CAP hoping to prove that civil society organizations, when empowered, can make a change towards introducing reform at the national level.
Building Capacity of Municipalities to Face Growing Challenges in Lebanon
The Building Alliances for Local Advancement, Development and Investment – Capacity Building (BALADI -CAP) project, funded by the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), launched its Civic Engagement for Democratic Governance (CEDG) component during an event held on Thursday July 14, 2106. CEDG is a two-year capacity-building component of the larger BALADI CAP program with a focus on strengthening the institutional capacities of municipalities, primarily in organizational development, financial management, information technology, and disaster management/contingency planning. With a strong emphasis on increased citizen engagement in public policy and decision-making, component activities will assist municipalities to make better decisions and deliver quality public services.
CEDG will work with 35 selected municipalities throughout Lebanon and is in the process of conducting a mapping of the various municipalities in order to identify a geographically diverse pool of municipality partners that will take part in CEDG’s Tailored Technical Assistance Program (TTAP). This mapping exercise will examine the capacity of municipalities to commit to the intensive TTAP capacity-building approach, including the number of full-time employees, municipal council members, active municipal committees, and overall budgets.
Presidents and representatives of various Lebanese municipalities attend the CEDG Kick-off event
The event brought together presidents and municipal council representatives from 15 municipalities across Lebanon in order to provide them with detailed information about the program and gauge their interest in participating. Following introductory visits, a final list of CEDG municipality beneficiaries will be announced and implementation of the benchmark capacity assessments will begin.
“We hope one day we become an e-municipality, whereby everything becomes online. This will be a cornerstone to combating corruption, something which has sadly become all too familiar in Lebanon”, said Antoine Abu Younes, Vice President of the Zahle Maalka Municipality.
During his presentation, BALADI CAP’s Chief of Party, Dr. Fares El Zein, stressed the importance of the comprehensive approach the program applies during its interventions, including regular participatory benchmark capacity assessments, standard and specialized training workshops, on-the-job coaching and Community of Practice regional meetings. The tailored technical assistance and follow-up provided by BALADI-CAP’s municipal experts in improving the individual capacity of municipality staff will impact overall institutional performance, while ensuring the institutionalization and sustainability of the acquired skills within municipal institutions.
BALADI CAP’s Chief of Party, Dr. Fares El Zein, presenting the CEDG component to the attendees
The presentation was followed by an active Question & Answer session where the attendees raised concerns and voiced challenges that they face at the municipal level, including those municipalities which are hosting a high concentration of Syrian refugees and the resulting impact on service delivery, resource management and security concerns. “Resource management is the single most important element to bring our municipality into the 21st century”, said Captain Marwan Al Aaawar, President of the Municipality of Qornayel. “We have invested in 25 young men and women by providing them with the necessary training and courses to become active members of the local police force, firefighters, etc.”
The discussion allowed for the exchange of information between municipalities and an overall consensus on the importance of CEDG in tackling these priority cross-cutting issues.
Captain Marwan Al Aawar, President of Qornayel Municipality, speaking to BALADI CAP’s Senior Communications Specialist, Ahmad Jaber
Meet Ahmad Kronfol, BALADI CAP’s CSO Specialist. Ahmad has a Master’s degree in Community Development from the University of Detroit Mercy – Michigan, and extensive experience in designing & managing projects. In addition to training and outreach for both the private and public sectors in Lebanon and abroad.
Ahmad’s interests fall in journalism, cultural tourism and nature. Above all, he enjoys being a family guy as a son, husband and a father.
On June 24, 2016, USAID-funded Building Alliances for Local Advancement, Development and Investment – Capacity Building (BALADI CAP) project organized a “Bidder’s Conference” at the Padova Hotel in Beirut. The goal of the Conference was to start the process of bringing CSO applicants to advocacy grants together to create synergies, partnerships, and coalitions as well as to discuss the importance of networking. The Conference was conducted upon the receipt of the expressions of interest EOIs from applicant CSOs, based on the activities listed in the Request for Application 605 100 06 RFA2. The RFA2 that was announced to the civil society organizations (CSOs) under three advocacy areas/clusters: Human Rights; Environment – Solid Waste management; and, Accountability & Good Governance.
The number of attendees who have participated in the event was 47 (27 Female & 20 Male) representing 27 CSOs.
Attendees during the opening session and welcome note
Session I:Introduction of Attendees & the BALADI CAP Project
The objective of this session, facilitated by Senior Advocacy Specialist, was to break the ice among the participants and to introduce BALADI CAP and the Civic Engagement Initiative (CEI) component. Participants were grouped into their respective issue networks and were asked to discuss and present the main policy challenges facing network members. CSO members then presented those challenges to other networks/CSOs.
Following the groups’ presentations, BALADI CAP Chief of Party, Dr. Fares El-Zein, introduced the program to the attendees and explained the three components of BALADI CAP, highlighting the importance of networking and coalition-building under the CEI component.
Attendees in the Accountability and Good Governance Network discussing challenges facing their network
Session II: Civic Engagement Initiative Pre-Grant Award Phase
The objective of this session was: 1) to introduce the participants to the different phases of the Civic Engagement Initiative (CEI) component, its objectives and the expected results, 2) for participants to form an idea about the time and effort needed to arrive at the proposal submission phase.
Participants were requested to remain in groups and to carefully read the road map document to CEI activities as prepared by the BALADI CAP team. The document/roadmap was made available to each participant in both English and Arabic. The roadmap illustrated the activities to be conducted under the CEI component for the three months period to come – mainly prior to the CSOs’ grants issuance, specifically: Bidders’ Conference, Setting the Agenda, Problem Solving Groups, Topic Discussion Groups, Concept Note, Proposal Writing Training and Coaching and Final Application.
Participants were then requested to provide any inquiries they might have to issue network members, other networks, and ultimately to BALADI CAP’s Chief of Party. The BALADI CAP team provided answers to all inquiries, and participants received a complete understanding of the pre-application phase.
Attendees in the Human Rights Network discussing CEI Pre-Grant Award Activities
Session III: Eligibility Requirements for RFA 2
BALADI CAP’s Deputy Chief of Party provided a comprehensive presentation about the eligibility requirements for RFA2. A Q&A session followed. The session tackled the following key points:
Eligible/ Ineligible Entities
Eligible/ Ineligible Activities
Selection Criteria for: a) Responsiveness of the technical approach; b) Organizational Experience and Capability; and, c) Proposed Personnel and Management Plan
BALADI CAP Deputy Chief of Party explaining eligibility requirements and evaluation criteria
Session IV: Networking and Building Partnerships
The session was intended to reinforce and optimize the networking opportunities among the participants. BALADI CAP’s team had prepared an Identity (ID) Card template per CSO that included information about the organization, its human resources, projects, geographical spread, development interventions, number of permanent and part-time staff, etc…
The ID cards were posted on a “gallery wall”. In parallel, a “networking matrix sheet” was distributed to attendees, which allowed them to check all attending CSOs based on their organizational capacity and networking priorities. Participants were requested to walk through the gallery and identify their potential partners by ticking specific boxes within their networking matrix. When properly filled, the “networking matrix” provided a visual for each CSO on its best potential partners for the project to which has applied (through an Expression of Interest – EOI).
Thanks to this networking and coalition building exercise, organizations succeeded in identifying potential partners, the latter of whom they will be contacting to check for possibilities of partnership under the BALADI CAP CEI component.
Attendees during the gallery walk, checking Identity Card Templates and filling in Networking Matrix Sheets
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