Barbara Walters chats with Forward Syria
Swaying between art and seduction
Discussing monetary policy with the man in charge
Where the earth screams in horror
02/17/2011 - Issue 48
Second development conference calling for submissions
It wasn’t too long ago that civil society was a foreign, abstract concept in Syria. Now it is a well-worn phrase.
After just four years of operation, the Syria Trust for Development has worked to inform Syrians and the greater international community that Syria is ready and capable of embracing positive real change through non-government cooperation in capacity building and development work across the country.
When First Lady Asma al-Assad, the chair and patron of the Syria Trust for Development - itself an independent NGO - opened the Trust’s first development conference in 2010, she spoke passionately of the need to engage all stratas of society in institutional change and development beyond the charity level.
“The government alone cannot move this country forward,” she told the conference.
Entitled The Emerging Role of Civil Society in Development, the conference was designed to bring together expertise from both within the country and around the world to share experiences and exchange ideas. Keynote lectures by international experts from Harvard University joined heavyweight international players, including the former United Nations deputy secretary general. The conference was lauded as a milestone in the development of a civil society movement in Syria.
Since then, the Trust has patronized dozens of development projects and worked to loosen government control and act as a unifying platform for NGOs. Since its inception in 2007, the Trust has provided an institutional home for several projects, focusing on building young people’s citizenship through non-formal education (MASSAR), rural development (FIRDOS), enhancing youth employability and entrepreneurial spirit (SHABAB), culture and heritage (RAWAFED), and socio-economic and civil society research (Syrian Development Research Center).
Now, following on from the success of the first conference, the Trust last month announced the second development conference will be held from May 21-23 this year. It is calling for submissions from researchers, practitioners, analysts, and interested parties on best practices/lessons learned in human and economic development that are supported by evidence-based research, in keeping with the subject of this year’s conference. The conference theme will be: The Role of Institutions in Development, Innovations in Institutional Development, and Applied/Policy-oriented Research on Development and Institutions.
This year the conference will be held in Aleppo, the industrial capital of Syria.
Submissions close on March 1. Full details of the submissions process are available at www.syriatrust.org
