Denmark has supported the establishment of a Syrian civil society training centre — 'Baytna' — in Gaziantep in southern Turkey since 2013. Baytna is staffed by Syrian civil society activists and acts as a convening hub for civil society support with project management advice and facilitation. The centre offers Syrian civil society and community based organisations mentoring and a curriculum of training courses in subjects such as proposal writing, concept development, finance and strategic planning. Offices and accommodation are available for lease by organisations with support on hand for registration and administrative assistance.
The project has two main components. The first component is supervision of the day-to-day running of Baytna, ensuring that it maintains and develops its position as a central training facility and focal point for Syrian civil society. During the programme period Baytna should expand its network and increase its ability to reach out to Syrian civil society and community based organisations.
The second component is the management of a ‘basket fund', which has been established and designed to provide kick-start funds to promising Syrian organisations. An Advisory Board regularly makes awards to organisations, having evaluated project submissions in a graduated manner to provide ‘capacitation through implementation'.
In the new project phase, Denmark will increase the contribution to the basket fund so that more Syrian CSOs will be able to get small grants for their activities. A new strategy for the basket fund will have to be devised to ensure that the funds will be utilized strategically and in a transparent manner.
The administration and management of Baytna should transition to a fully independent, Syrian-led organisation by the end of the programme period. The contractor will be responsible for gradually handing over responsibility, while ensuring that the sufficient managerial and organisational capacity is in place.
For more information, see: www.baytnasyria.org
Section V: Award of contract
Contract No: DC 3151
V.1) Date of contract award decision:
25.8.2014
V.2) Information about offers
Number of offers received: 5
V.3) Name and address of economic operator in favour of whom the contract award decision has been taken
E-mail: Telephone: Internet address: Fax: Transtec in consortium with Aktis, Avenue de Tyras 75, 1120 Brussel, BELGIUM, mcorbisier@transtec.be +32 22664968, www.transtec.be +32 22664965