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NGO Capacity Building Handbook

This handbook - published in Arabic with summary information available here in English - has been written to help strengthen the governing structure and increase the openness and responsiveness of NGOs in the Middle East, particularly in Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen. It is also intended to help answer developmental and structural questions for the non-governmental community in the region.

NGO Capacity Building Handbook
[Full text in Arabic - Description and Introduction in English below. Click on the link to download (requires Adobe Acrobat Reader).]

This handbook has been written to help strengthen the governing structure and increase the openness and responsiveness of NGOs in the Middle East, particularly in Egypt, Jordan, the Palestinian Authority, Syria, Tunisia, and Yemen. It is also intended to help answer developmental and structural questions for the non-governmental community in the region.

The handbook is a project of Search for Common Ground in the Middle East and was written by Emad Omar. Funding was provided by the U.S. Department of State.

Acknowledgement
At the end of 1998, a group of representatives from a number of Arab non-governmental organizations (NGOs) met in Washington, DC, with a work agenda that included visits to several American NGOs with various objectives and mandates to learn about the experience of those organizations in managing different aspects of their work. This meeting was part of a project supervised by Search for Common Ground, the world's largest conflict prevention and resolution NGO. The objective of the meeting was to empower civil society in the Arab World through capacity building.

Representatives held intensive meetings for many days to discuss the potential for producing a handbook on establishing and managing non-governmental organizations as well as capacity building. The discussions were based on the personal experiences of the participants and their organizations, as well as on the experience and knowledge gathered from the American NGOs they visited in Washington.

The guidelines for the handbook.s table of contents are the result of brainstorming sessions and extended dialogue among a distinguished group of representatives from Arab non-governmental organizations. A small amendment was made to the handbook guidelines that the group devised, the most significant of which is the addition of a chapter on conflict management systems.

Meeting Participants
Ashtar Lutfi (Princess Basma Women.s Resource Center) - Jordan
Azza Kamel (Center for Adequate Communication Methods for Development "ACT") - Egypt
Eiz Adin Al Asbahy (Human Rights Information and Training Center "HRITC") - Yemen
Khadija Madani (Center for Studies, Research, Documentation and Information on Women "CREDIF") - Tunisia.
Melia Salameh - Syria
Muhammed Al Sa.di (MIZAN "Law Group for Human Rights" - International Commission of Jurists, Jordanian Section) - Jordan
Radah Shura (International Committee of the Red Cross) - Syria
Said Al Maqadmeh (Palestinian Center for Helping Resolve Community Disputes) - Palestine

Contents
Chapter 1: Strategic Planning
Chapter 2: Organization Management and Leadership
Chapter 3: Bylaws
Chapter 4: Fundraising and Proposals
Chapter 5: Project Management
Chapter 6: Networking
Chapter 7: Advocacy
Chapter 8: Conflict Management Systems
Glossary

Introduction
The establishment of non-governmental organizations is, by necessity, the product of an idea, aimed at serving a targeted group within society. This idea may expand and transcend local boundaries to become global. It may succeed in generating wide popular support by virtue of its tendency to address an important and attractive issue that draws attention among the masses. But an idea is not sufficient to fulfill the targeted group's interests, and certainly not sufficient to establish and manage an NGO. Perhaps one of the main reasons for the failure of some NGOs that stood for noble and sensitive ideas is the misconception of their directors that the importance of the concept in itself is sufficient to facilitate the organization's affairs and to guarantee its growth and prosperity.

The idea should be followed by a group of activities based on administrative concepts, a comprehensive knowledge of the main elements necessary for establishing and managing an NGO, the philosophy behind these elements and their tools and mechanisms, and the necessary steps without which it is not possible to formulate the organization's infrastructure. Without these, it is not possible to manage the organization's affairs and guarantee its continuity and ability to achieve its objectives and targets. The establishment and management of the organization requires skills, capabilities and primary resources, and the organization's patrons must develop the basic capabilities, including the essential resources and human skills, as well as adopt certain administrative concepts in developing these capabilities, based on the experience of NGOs in this field.

Arabic books that address the subject of building NGO capabilities are scarce, and manuals that provide guidelines for NGO directors explaining how to deal with basic concepts that form the organization's infrastructure and the content of these concepts are even more scarce. In view of this scarcity, some Arab NGOs, supported by international institutions, undertook the translation of some foreign manuals into Arabic. Some succeeded in bridging the gap in this area, providing manuals that can be used as references when dealing with some NGO infrastructure issues.

Yet there is still need for a manual that explains the establishment and management of NGOs in a simplified and concise manner, close to the culture of the Arab mentality, providing details that do not delve into the rigor of technical references, where the flow of information and concepts is attractive and systematic, encouraging the reader to read it from cover to cover. This is what this manual attempts to achieve. The primary objective of the manual is to arouse the reader's interest to the general framework of NGOs, the elements of managing them, the philosophy behind the way they operate, and the capabilities required for operating them. The objective behind arousing attention is to familiarize the reader with components and special terms, tools, mechanisms and definitions specific to NGOs, so he / she can formulate a comprehensive outlook of the subject upon completion of the manual.

This outlook provides the reader with the opportunity to acquire the skills to discuss subjects covered by the book, and to research additional details about them in future, identifying shortcomings and requirements, perfecting the terminology, definitions and facts related to the subject matter, assist in raising important questions on the subjects, and recognizing the steps to be taken in establishing the NGO and building the capabilities and the fundamental elements of its infrastructure. Most NGO staff we talked to have expressed the need for the means to identify subjects and details they should be familiar with before the establishment of an NGO, and the manner of managing them.

There are, indeed, many subjects that can be listed in a manual to address the issue of establishing and managing NGOs. But after a great deal of debate and consideration, seven major subjects were included that represent the minimum requirement for formulating an overview of the establishment of an NGO and building of its capabilities. These are: Strategic Planning; Managing and Leading the Organization; Preparation of Internal By-Laws; Preparing a Project Proposal and Obtaining Funding; Preparation and Management of the Project; Networks and Networking; and Gaining Support. In addition to these subjects, the manual contains a glossary of terms related to NGOs and building their capabilities.

The organization requires strategic planning to evaluate its position as related to strategy, organizational structure, staff, skills, regulations applicable, mode of operation and common values, and for the purpose of identifying its strategic options and priorities, and analyzing organizational boundaries where the organizational structure, legal authorities, risk margin, human resources and funding are concerned, in addition to evaluating variables that affect the organization, and identifying the vision, values, authorities, targets and objectives, and examining methods of implementing the strategic plan. An organization without an organized strategic plan cannot identify itself and does not have a direction, nor does it have the capacity to deal with the variables influencing it.

The organization also requires the creation of an administrative infrastructure that facilitates managing its daily affairs and leading its operation and internal dynamism in a way that guarantees continuity and the implementation of its strategic plans and work programs. The administrative infrastructure has fundamental components, the most important of which being the organizational structure, information systems, administrative procedures, employee affairs, planning, program development, leadership commissions, future vision, validity, relations with beneficiaries, organizational leadership, legal status, report generation, work organization, financial accounts, and others. There are certain qualities and skills that upper management should possess in order to lead the organization authoritatively and efficiently.

The organization, furthermore, needs internal by-laws which include regulations and controls that govern the fundamental components of its organizational structure and the nature of the internal relationships among the components and parts of the organizational chart, in order to avert conflicts and struggles that may arise between individuals and systems.

The organization should be capable of preparing and writing a proposal for a project, fully knowledgeable of available funding sources, local or international, and capable of transferring an idea into a project proposal, and then working at marketing the idea as to its benefit, budget, how realistic it is, the availability of capabilities and skills to implement it, and the improvement of funding opportunities. Without funding, all organizational ideas and objectives remain "ink on paper", and the continuity of the organization will be at stake. The organization should be qualified to address the issue of funding in such a way that preserves its independence, diversification of funding sources, its very existence, and its growth.

NGOs depend in their work on the preparation and management of projects. Hence, key people in these organizations should be well-versed in project management, including the project life-cycle, and control of project implementation and evaluation. Preparation for the project involves knowledge of its basic elements, namely; objectives, inputs, activities and outputs.

It is essential for an organization to cooperate with other organizations through participating in networks. The decision to join a network requires knowledge of network types and the organizational elements that govern relationships between network members, and the extent to which these elements affect the work and independence of the organization. It is important that key people in the organization be knowledgeable of the mode of operation within networks, since joining these networks is a voluntary activity that does not affect member independence and leadership flexibility, and that it is beneficial for the basic work of the organization and the participation of all members in the planning process for the network operation. The availability of the capacity to evaluate the effectiveness of the network which the organization plans to join is useful.

Most NGOs strive at influencing policies related to the organization's aims and objectives, through campaigns and plans to gain support. The campaign may take the form of gathering information and placing it in an appropriate format to use in educating and promoting awareness among some government parties, institutions, individuals or institutes concerning a specific issue or to change a prevailing outlook. Such lobbying campaigns have strategies, mechanisms and tools the organization should be aware of . The organization should have the necessary skills to provide and operate these skills. Perhaps the most important issue is the preservation of the organization's credibility and the clarity of the message which the lobbying campaign is trying to send.

Organizations need procedures to address conflicts that arise during their activities, whether those conflicts are internal or external. Various methods of addressing such conflicts are available. For example, if the organization lacks conflict resolution procedures, it could rely on management authority and the power circles within the organization to end conflicts or it could adopt integrated conflict management systems, whereby all stakeholders participate in the design of the system. Such systems should take into consideration an analysis of the organizational environment, including the work culture, and should harmonize with the character of non-governmental organizations.

This brief explanation of some of the concepts and capabilities that an organization needs for facilitating its work is a small portion of the details this book attempts to highlight and explain. However, the book does not aim at being an encyclopedia in this area, but rather a fundamental introduction that contributes to educating the reader in the basic elements of operating NGOs, and the concepts, mechanisms, philosophy and components of these elements, presenting them in a concise, logical and systematic manner, and presenting enough details to crystallize a comprehensive overview of the subject.

Reading the book, the reader will have the ability to delve into additional details, and participate in deeper dialogues over the subject matter of the book. The reader will also possess the capability to direct NGO key leaders, or those planning to establish a new NGO to the key elements they should concentrate on to guarantee an effective and independent organization, capable of managing its own affairs and having the reasons for survival and continuity.

The scientific and intellectual material used in covering the contents of this manual are the results of a serious and concentrated dialogue with key people at existing successful Arab NGO, as well as comprehensive and intensive readings of publications in Arabic and foreign sources, in addition to the author's personal experience.