RESLOG 2 (SALAR 2022)

The overall performance of the project has been satisfactory. The project focused on capacity strengthening of local authorities and community members in Lebanon and Türkiye, particularly on enabling municipalities to establish conducive meeting places for community interaction. Under the first Outcome, the project strengthened municipal data collection and analysis, increased municipal governance capacity, supported municipalities in fundraising, as well as strengthened inclusivity and active citizenship. In Türkiye, the project supported community centers with language activities, such as language courses, language cafés, and conversation clubs, to improve the language capabilities of refugee men and women. It also supported municipalities as enablers for cohabitation by assisting Civil Society Organizations conducting inclusive activities in municipal centers. Additionally, it supported the Hemdem's women's cooperative catering for Sultanbeyli Municipality's traditional children's street game fairs to promote cohabitation. Finally, it built capacity in community center staff to use street games as a tool for cohabitation. In Lebanon, municipalities were supported in promoting interaction through municipal multipurpose rooms and voluntary structures, providing space for men and women to support municipalities and/or union of municipalities in services based on emerging needs. Moreover, significant progress has been achieved in data collection and analysis, with socio-economic data collected in 23 municipalities using active community volunteers. Municipalities have gained skills to analyze the collected data in a gender-sensitive manner, with trainings conducted for interested municipalities on using and analyzing data with a gender lens. User-friendly dashboards were created for each municipality to facilitate analysis. Moreover, in Lebanon, the project created and empowered a youth council connected to the Dreib al Awsat Union of Municipalities and developed the First Responder team connected to the Jurd al Qayteh Union of Municipalities as mechanisms for inclusive citizen engagement. The second outcome focused on improving community members' access to income opportunities, with a particular emphasis on women. It also aims to enhance the capacities of municipalities to promote local economic development and include Syrian refugees and vulnerable groups, especially women, in environmentally sustainable economic activities. Three Turkish municipalities were selected as pilot sites to test their capacity to drive local economic development and generate income opportunities for Syrian refugees and local communities, with a focus on women. SALAR initiated a situational study in fall 2022 to develop a Local Economic Development (LED) plan for each municipality. In Lebanon, in April 2022, a rapid rural appraisal was conducted in Akkar to identify barriers, opportunities, and actors for increasing green livelihood opportunities for men and women from Lebanese and refugee communities. The study identified hospitality, rural nature tourism, cottage-based agro-food processing, and upcycling production by women's groups as feasible areas for green local economic development. Rural tourism was selected as the initial focus, and bungalow owners were identified as key actors to initiate local development activities in green growth. In Kherbet Daoud and Bireh municipalities, a startup company contracted women to produce 600 tote bags and supported them in improving the quality of their production. The women were also connected with other actors in the area and enrolled in a business start-up support program by the INGO IECD, specialized in promoting economic development. The project established a collaboration with the initiative "My Amazing Lebanon" to develop a sustainable market strategy for the upcycling groups. The third outcome focuses on strengthening engagement of Turkish Local Government Actors in Migration Policy matters. The outcome is implemented only in Türkiye, where national legitimate structures can work to influence migration policy at national level. Vertical dialogue meetings have been organized, bringing together central and local government actors, international donors, and project representatives. The Policy Paper proposals have exceeded expectations by being included in the 12th five-year development plan and the migration and resettlement commission report, thanks to the efforts of Presidency of Migration Management (PMM) and the Union of Municipalities of Turkiye (UMT). The engagement of the PMM has significantly contributed to this progress. Originally targeted for lobbying efforts, PMM has become a partner to Reslog and UMT, actively advocating the Migration Policy Paper to other government agencies. UMT now owns the Policy Paper, and Reslog provides support in all advocacy processes, including coaching the Migration and Cohesion Center Coordinator and the Head of Foreign Relations. Regular monitoring meetings have been established between partner unions and PMM to track the advocacy plan's progress.

The impact goal of RESLOG2 is defined as: Selected municipalities in Akkar, Lebanon and in Türkiye have become more resilient through strengthened municipal governance, including improved abilities to provide more equal access to services, livelihood opportunities and means for peaceful co-habitation to women and men from Syrian refugee and local communities The three overall outcomes contributing to the impact goal are: 1) Strengthen provision of municipal services and peaceful cohabitation through fostering of active citizenship, 2) More decent and greener local livelihood opportunities for women and men in refugee and local communities 3)Turkish local government actors have become more systematic and effective in contributing to migration policy matters of concern (Only Türkiye) The three outcomes are further operationalised through intermediate outcomes. SALAR presents in the proposal a detailed description of the strategies applied under each expected intermediate outcome and submitted as annex a detailed work plan.