Rebecca Herrington, Search for Common Ground
What is the general context in which the story takes place?
Collaboration, continuous communication, learning, and adaptability are concepts grounded in Search for Common Ground’s (SFCG’s) core values and approaches to programming.
Participatory, reflective practice is essential in SFCG’s work in peace-building; it strengthens the organization’s ability to evolve, adapt to rapidly changing, complex contexts, and achieve effective, sustainable impacts toward peace. In order to instill a culture of collaboration, learning, and adaptability, SFCG systematically reflects on programming throughout the project cycles, both within and across country offices around the world, builds lessons learned from different perspectives, and institutionalizes the knowledge gained. Specifically, reflections from the past few years have taken place in country offices in Madagascar, Burundi, Nepal, and elsewhere. This case study is from our country office in Lebanon, where cross-program learning is fostered through periodic, multi-stakeholder led forums.
After 15 years of civil war, Lebanon has achieved a minimal level of stability, and is still struggling with religious and ethnic divides. SFCG began working in Lebanon in 1996 and opened a permanent office in 2008, implementing 31 projects since then. Currently, SFCG projects in Lebanon are addressing ongoing conflict factors, including programming focused on working through tensions resulting from the influx of Syrian refugees, security sector reform, and women’s socioeconomic empowerment. To examine the progress of SFCG’s active projects in Lebanon during the past year, a series of reflections took place in January and July 2015. The following projects were included in the reflections:
Better Together, a project that aims to empower the Internal Security Forces and citizens in Hbeish to work together to strengthen security and stability in their community.
A Youth-led Approach to Peaceful Coexistence between Syrian Refugee and Lebanese Host Communities, a project in Bekaa Valley and South Lebanon, which uses art to develop trusting, empathetic, and respectful relationships between Syrian and Lebanese youth.
Establishing Dialogue and Local Conflict Response Mechanisms in 11 Communities, a project that aims to decrease tensions between Syrian and Lebanese communities caused by the influx of refugees, which has significantly decreased Lebanese people’s access to housing, jobs, schools, water, electricity, and other services. This project works to establish communication between the two communities and build local capacity within each community to enable them to jointly identify common problems and potential solutions.
Everyone Gains, Promoting Women’s Socioeconomic Empowerment In Lebanon and Morocco, a project that aims to advocate for reducing economic barriers for women in MENA region.
Stakeholders who participated in the reflections consisted of SFCG project staff, donors, and local partners involved in implementing the projects.
What was the main challenge/opportunity you were addressing with this CLA approach or activity?
The following are the main drivers behind the culture of collaborative learning at SFCG:
A desire to contribute to a shift from an output-based approach to an outcome-based approach in the peace-building field
A desire to increase the management’s capacity to adapt to changing contexts
A desire to create a space where staff, partners, and donors collaborate, exchange feedback, share challenges, and explore solutions in order to foster understanding and share visions for better results
A desire to enhance local capacities and equip partners with the knowledge and learning necessary to achieve sustainability In the Lebanese context, a growing, country-led culture of reflection, coinciding project cycles, and regional volatility requiring keen flexibility and responsive programming coalesced for the January and July 2015 CLA events. The events were seen as a great opportunity to engage donors in the reflection process, in order to give them a chance to see the impact their funds were having. The events also created an opportunity to celebrate the efforts made by staff in implementing the many projects operating simultaneously in the region.