The Syria Trust for Development and the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP), with the approval of the Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs and the State Planning Commission, signed a three year Project Document aimed at establishing a Platform of cooperation for development-focused NGOs in Syria. This project follows the successful completion of a one-year Initiation Plan between the Syria Trust and UNDP, which produced the project proposal with grassroots input and support from the NGO community in Syria.
The goal of this project is to establish the NGO Platform as an independent legal entity with three core objectives: (a) provide a network for Syrian NGOs working in the field of social-economic development to communicate and share experiences, (2) strengthen the organizational capacities of the member NGOs to carry out development projects and (3) build national technical capabilities within NGOs to develop and manage projects.
The formation of an NGO Platform will provide the space for development-focused NGOs in Syria to coordinate activities, share experiences, and identify areas of cooperation in assistance to national development frameworks such as the National Millennium Development Goals Report and the 10th National 5-Year Plan.
The Project Document was prepared following research on the needs and circumstances of civil society in Syria and meetings with a representative group of NGOs, including two National Dialogue Workshops held in Damascus in 2008 and Homs in 2009. The project will be incubated within the Syria Trust for Development in its start-up phase and will seek to develop partnerships with various national and international counterparts.
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