[LINK] "Syrian civil society in Lebanon: challenges and opportunities"

[rfmcdonald]

Open Democracy's Fadi Hallisso describes the struggles of Syrian civil society in its Lebanese diaspora.

Working in relief for Syrian groups in Lebanon has proven though to be tricky. Although those groups worked very hard at the beginning of the crisis - when the international response was too weak - and managed to build up a very good reputation, many had to stop their activities after a year or so. The reason behind this phenomenon was the lack of support most of these groups received to continue doing what they were effectively doing. In order to be able to continue their activities, most of those groups needed two essential things:

- Longterm funds to compensate for the ever-dwindling resources in terms of the private donations that they counted on at the beginning of the crisis.

- To make the move to a more professional work-style, where they would be able to hire out their qualified members as full-time employees. This kind of qualification was essential if these activists were to survive in one of the Middle East’s most expensive countries.

Unfortunately the community of donors and INGOs are reluctant to support those groups, arguing that they are unable to fund “Unregistered Entities”. Gradually, most of the founders of those groups, unable either to return to their country or to afford staying jobless in Lebanon, found themselves forced to seek a better future elsewhere. Many of them are now dispersed all over the world, from Sweden and the Netherlands to Germany and the United States.

Most of the INGOs and international donors have instead of supporting such work, implemented projects themselves, and begun to bring their international staff from all over the world to Lebanon, where the government was, at the beginning of the crisis, turning a blind eye to the numerous organizations coming into Lebanon to start up their own projects. But that situation has also changed; currently there is an escalation of resentment among Lebanese officials towards the way many of those INGOs have chosen to work, and many barriers to their work are being erected in the different humanitarian sectors.