‘Robust and Connected Civil Society for Refugees’ is a project funded, within EuropeAid programme, by the Turkish National Agency and it supports the development of civil society through a more active democratic participation in policy and decision-making processes, as well as through the provision of more sustainable and effective services.
CEIPES staff is proud to have carried out the initial need analysis delivered to the CSOs to get an overview of how they are structured and how they work in terms of human resources, transparency, use or resources, strategic planning, cooperation & coordination, implementation and impact of their activities, and so on.
The project aims to strengthen cooperation of the civil society organizations (CSOs) between each other and with public administration through the creation of a networking mechanism for consultation. Moreover the project will create a structure for monitoring the degree of compliance with the decisions of the consultation mechanism in order to ensure its effectiveness.
The analysis of the surveys revealed that the interviewed CSOs work on voluntary base and have no institutionalization, as well as they have significant deficiencies in project writing and activity planning therefore their projects remain poor and unsystematic. Moreover they declared having deficiencies in reporting, coordination and implementation of their activities due to the lack of strategic plans. They also face issues when working with public institutions, as well as when accessing foreign funds.
Upon that, last November in Istanbul, CEIPES staff conducted a capacity building training to CSOs on ‘Fundamentals of Management for Non-Profit Organization’ focusing on following core sessions: building your strategy, financial management, advocacy, human resources, monitoring & evaluation. In details, the training touched upon the following topics: strategic planning, human resources, financial management, transparency, accountability, project management, monitoring of results, diversifying financial resources, lobbying & advocacy.
In the following months KADEM and CEIPES will work together on the creation of capacity building toolkit for the CSOs with the contributions of other experts. Moreover a best practice visit will be arranged in Palermo for KADEM delegation over next February.
CEIPES thanks KADEM and the Republic of Turkey for the hospitality in Istanbul and wishes to collaborate again in the near future!
