Lebanese Republic
29 March 2024
Capacity development training program workshop "Guiding steps towards policy dialogue between the civil society and the public sector"
26 September 2018

AFKAR program, managed by the Office of the Minister of State for Administrative Reform and funded by the European Union, organized a workshop entitled "Dialogue between the public sector and the civil Society on public policies" on Tuesday and Wednesday, September 25-26, 2018 at the Monroe Hotel, Ain el Mreysseh.

Attendees were non-governmental organizations beneficiaries of AFKAR program, mayors who collaborated with these NGOs, and representatives of the ministries concerned by the projects implemented in the framework of the program.

This event followed several previous meetings and workshops within the civil society and public sector partnership dialogue component including ministries and municipalities. The sessions focused on policy dialogue mechanisms between the two parties. During the workshop, the experts adopted practical exercises accomplished by working groups from all parties and an open discussion took place between them. As a result, some dialogue guiding steps, based on the knowledge and experience of the participants themselves, will be developed in the specialized training manual established by AFKAR experts team.

During the workshop opening, Mrs. Youmna Chacar Ghorayeb, AFKAR program manager, highlighted the support provided by the program to the NGOs, financially and technically. She clarified the path of the policy dialogue component. As well, Mrs. Ghorayeb focused on the role of follow-up and training in building the partnership between these organizations, the municipalities and the concerned ministries. She also pointed out that the training program that will be issued by AFKAR will be based on dialogue experiences between the concerned parties.

The training expert, Nabil El Hassan, conducted the workshop aiming to develop the training manual content and to experiment some of its tools. He succeeded, through practical exercises, in which the trainees participated, to introduce different approaches to dialogue. The main target was to unify the perception of the role of civil society, municipalities and ministries. The characteristics of the municipalities, associations and ministries were discussed, as well as the required skills of the individuals in these sectors.
He stressed on the importance of finding common points to build on for partnerships and called for separating the existing competencies in each sector from the general context. He presented the mayor and the municipal council prerogatives, aiming to reach the participation of each sector in the development of plans and public policies.

During the second day, the workshop presented the technical path of the dialogue and its mechanisms, and stressed on how to overcome the political and regional context, in order to create a space of dialogue involving all the parties. Mr. El Hassan presented the tools and approaches of dialogue, on the local, municipal, regional and national level. The representatives of municipalities and ministries participated actively in this session, through training exercises and discussions, highlighting the existing problems and the initiatives to fix the dialogue approaches and its levels.

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