SERVICES & EXPERTISE
We offer six types of services across twelve fields of development. Our expertise covers the following fields:
We work with different local and national peace processes and with UN bodies involved with peace building. We facilitate dialogues and political negotiation, support the engagement of women in political negotiations, develop conflict mapping and conflict sensitivity analysis , and facilitate local mediation. We also provide support and a variety of training modules for peace initiatives and local stakeholders.
Our team supports holistic approaches for communities to regain their vitality and build better in the aftermath of conflict, natural disasters as well as urban decay. We excel in designing inclusive and socially adaptive programs and processes. From historic cities, to informal settlements, to post-war and post-disaster situations, we help local and international actors to assess conditions, negotiate priorities, develop strategies, design financial and institutional instruments, and establish accountability frameworks. We also help develop the preparedness of stakeholders to meet future risks and set up contingency plans and early warning systems.
Our experts are engaged in professional and research capacities to localize the sustainable development agenda in the MENA region. We work on reviews and consultations over the MDGs and the SDGs and on reporting on their progress in a variety of sectors. We also research the impact of conflict in the region on the progress towards 2030. But mostly we value our bottom-up approaches to local development that aim at building community-based programing, local development plans, empowering local communities (especially women to engage) in policy making, supporting local municipal visions, establishment of urban observatories, and negotiating the duties and responsibilities of the different local and national level actors.
We work from the bottom up with local communities to aggregate available assets, engage stakeholders, create synergies and multipliers. We help local authorities to develop both supply and demand-side incentives and planning instruments, and we support them to develop partnerships with civil society and businesses. We understand that stakeholders have different valuation priorities, so we support them to negotiate win-win concepts and prepare feasibility studies for projects. Supporting women as economic actors is an essential pillar of local development; we ensure that their participation and priorities are incorporated into every step of the process.
We work on research, policy, capacity building, and facilitation to support local governance actors. We help promulgating internationally funded development programs to support the decentralization process and build local absorption capacities. We also facilitate dialogues among local and national stakeholders on both the technical and political levels to promote better policies and legal instruments. We audit policies, programs and projects to assess their impacts and ability to meet their targets.
We work on projects that range from urban master plans, historic cities conservation plans, city development strategies, local economic development programs, urban regulations, and urban funding instruments. We also help local authorities to assess their administrative and fiscal procedures, improve their operations, and become more transparent and engaging with their communities. We develop procedures to assess the feasibility of urban planning, land pooling and land management processes. And we help local and national authorities in fine tuning regulatory frameworks for better urban and environmental planning and design.
Our team of experts have led some of the best practices in urban heritage management in the MENA region, earning them international recognition and awards, including the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture. We work extensively with local actors to develop a holistic understanding of the heritage values as seen by the community; we help chart local dynamics and forces impacting tangible and intangible heritage assets; and we help in developing locally anchored processes of rehabilitation, conservation and revitalization. Our experts have worked with local and national authorities to develop policy, legal frameworks and conservation plans, and we have led discussions with the World Heritage Center at UNESCO regarding reporting and progress of conservation efforts especially for World Heritage Sites in Danger.
Our experts have been involved in a variety of complex architectural and urban design projects. We bring that expertise in helping clients (from the public and private sectors) to develop clear visions for their projects. We also help in negotiating and developing local codes, guidelines, and regulatory instruments for the urban built environment. Our experts have been invited to review and contribute to different competition’ juries and awards, including the prestigious Aga Khan Award for Architecture.
We work on research, policy, and facilitation for HLP issues. For over 25 years, our experts have been advising clients from the public sector, NFPs, and international organizations on the legal frameworks governing property rights, tenure rights, security of tenure, the political economy of property, the economics of land management systems, and risk analysis. We facilitate local dialogues and highly technical meetings and workshops among experts and institutional partners. We also develop digital tools to digitize analogue records and to use AI to extract cadastral features from old records.
We support municipalities, NGOs, and international organizations in interacting with local communities. We also work with private sector clients to promote their Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) programs. We offer research, strategies, and facilitation (private consultations, focus groups, workshops, public debates, and mediation). We also work on supporting advocacy and communication efforts and engagement of local stakeholders in policy making. Our experts have developed and delivered a wide array of capacity building modules to support public, private and civil society organizations in promoting public causes and the public good.
We work on facilitating the integration of women in development and political processes. We support dialogues, advocacy for women’s and girls’ rights, developing research and indicators related to different aspects of gender dynamics, and capacity building for women leaders. We also advise clients on ensuring that their operations are gender mainstreamed, and to facilitate engagement with relevant stakeholders and community groups for the purpose. We also engage in research related to electoral norms and processes to advocate for better accessibility of women to political representation.
Our experts work with different civil society organizations (CSOs) and initiatives. We excel in CSO management, planning and outreach. We work on monitoring the civic space and advocacy for legal and policy reforms. We focus on building competencies from the bottom up; helping CSOs and local actors (especially women) to organize, fundraise and negotiate their local and national regulatory frameworks. We support CSOs in leveraging community resources and mobilizing local communities to establish commons and advocate for the public good. We also support strategic partnerships and negotiations among donors, governments, private sector actors with civil society groups and stakeholders.