Description

MED-PACT (Local Authorities Partnership Programme in the Mediterranean www.med-pact.eu) is a Euro 5M decentralized cooperation programme which relates to the third strand of the Barcelona Partnership, aimed at encouraging dialogue and co-operation between civil societies from both sides of the Mediterranean, with a view to improving mutual understanding and promoting cultural and social rapprochement. MED-PACT is monitored by DG EuropeAid, Unit A/3 in Brussels, in close cooperation with the Delegations in charge of the management of the respective contracts.
As Team Leader of the Technical Assistance Programme, duties included:

• Support/advice, in order to improve programme/project performance and impact, particularly as regards planning, management, technical aspects of project implementation, reporting, communication and dissemination of information;
• Coordination, to encourage contacts and exchanges between project beneficiaries, harmonise management systems, thereby facilitating comparisons and evaluations ; increase the regional dimension, or take advantage more fully of the potential of the region; and avoid duplication of efforts;
• Information, to increase the visibility of MED-PACT and of the projects, raise the attention of national decision-makers, experts, researchers or potential financiers, increase public awareness, encourage the replication of success stories;
• Monitoring and reporting, to help anticipate problems, avoid mistakes, prevent inadequate or insufficient reporting, speed up implementation, facilitate contract adjustments where necessary, and prepare the ground for external evaluations.
• Duties also include the supervision and regular contributions to the MED-PACT website

The mission of the RUAF Foundation (Resource Centers on Urban Agriculture and Food Security, www.ruaf.org) is to contribute to urban poverty reduction, employment generation and food security and to stimulate participatory city governance and improved urban environmental management, by creating enabling conditions for empowerment of urban and peri-urban farmers and by facilitating the integration of urban agriculture in policies and action programs of local governments, civil society organizations and private enterprises.
As regional coordinator of the RUAF - MENA program, duties include the management of two participatory learning and action programs implemented in Sana’ – Yemen and Amman – Jordan, as well as activities in a network of cities collaborating with the program in Damascus- Syria, Tunis – Tunisia, Casablanca – Morocco, Baalbeck – Lebanon, and Jericho – Palestine.
Other duties include Knowledge Management activities targeting policy makers and the public at large on urban agriculture (policy briefs, awareness seminars, networking activities, publishing the Urban Agriculture Magazine in Arabic, production of didactic and training material, sustaining the MENA portal on Urban Agriculture….)

Team Leader, “Sustainable Development Lebanon Task Force” set by H.E Sheikh Saad Hariri (leader of the Lebanese parliamentary majority) and aiming at establishing a nation-wide development program for Lebanon which includes micro-finance services and socially responsible investment. The financial magnitude of the program is $80M and was officially launched by H.E Sheikh Saad on February 14th 2008, in commemoration of the 3rd anniversary of the assassination of his father PM Rafic Hariri
Other key assignments included providing advisory services to the “Water, Health and Climate Change in Africa” initiative of the International Development & Research Center of Canada (IDRC) with funding from the British Cooperation (DIFD) covering 8 African countries (Algeria, Burkina Faso, Egypt, Ivory Coast Ghana, Guinea, Morocco & Tunisia) as well as conducting the Self Assessment Study of KariaNet (Knowledge Access for Rural Inter-connected Areas Network) a 1.8M partnership between the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and IDRC in view of evaluating the outcomes of Phase I of the project (2005-2008) and establishing the Road Map of a future Phase II

The ARLA project was financed by the European Union and supervised by the Office of the Minister of State for Administrative Reform (OMSAR) and aimed at providing institutional and technical support to 12 Municipality Clusters in Lebanon (200+ municipalities involved in the program covering 34% of the Lebanese territory). Duties included the Technical Coordination of the three key phases of the project:

• The drafting the Local Development Plans for each of the 12 Municipality Clusters which included an in-depth socio-economic analysis of the development potentials, identification of the development priorities and strategies for intervention and suggestions for the operationalization of these plans.
• Overseeing the preparation of 60 technical & feasibility studies in a variety of subject areas such as sustainable natural resources management, agricultural development, preservation and promotion of the natural and cultural heritage, participatory land-use planning, implementation of business incubators, creation of regional parks, etc..
• Preparation and coordination of a roundtable for donors to which the outcomes of the project were to be presented in order to seek international and/or bilateral funding for their execution. The roundtable could not take place as scheduled due to the tragic events that took place in Lebanon in December 2005, but these dossiers (but also the Local Development Plans) were extensively drawn upon for determining funding priorities after the Israeli aggression on Lebanon in summer 2006, especially in the clusters that were most affected by the hostilities (South Lebanon, Beqaa and North Lebanon mainly)

For each of these 3 phases, duties included selection of the teams of experts (more than 80 experts for the 3 phases combined), development of the conceptual framework, coordinating the overall progress of the work, monitoring & evaluation and troubleshooting/backstopping the teams when needed. The financial magnitude of these tasks was in the range of $2M (more than 3,500 expert/days in total).

Since 2003 collaborates actively with IDRC as a consultant/trainer/backstopper in Participatory Action Research projects, such as the “Research Capacity Development Platform for Algeria” (2004), the “Regional Training and Information Sharing on Urban Agriculture” (2005-2006,) “Developing the Capacities of the Research Teams of Water Demand Initiative in the Middle East and North Africa WaDImena (2005-2006), Capacity Development in participatory research of the “Ariana-Soukra Focus City” team (2007), “Building Capacities of Afghan Researchers: Sustainable Livelihoods Analysis, Participatory Research and Social Gender Analysis” in collaboration with ICARDA and DFID (Syria 2007), “Introducing and Exploring the Applicatbility of Outcome Mapping in the MENA region (2007-2008), developing the research capacity in ICT4D for the MENA region (under the Acacia program (Qatar 2009) and mainstreaming the theory and application of Outcome Mapping in the MENA region (2009 – 2011)
The main contribution in each of these projects/initiatives is to reinforce the participatory dimension of the work with various stakeholders and avoiding the researcher-driven bias, as well as mainstreaming a “culture of participation” from the initial project design to ensuring appropriate mechanisms for participatory M&E, especially Outcome Mapping

Deep understanding of multi-cultural contexts and confirmed facilitation skills of multi-stakeholder events aiming at building consensus and/or establishing action plans and work programs around development topics. Interventions include:High-level policy seminars such as “Options for Agriculture Extension Reform” (FAO- Tunisia 2006), “Bridging the Gap between the North and the South in Water Research” (World Water Week, Stockholm 2007, back in 2008), the “Community of Practice on Eco-Health in the MENA region” (CoPEH-MENA, IDRC-Senegal 2006) and the “Stocktaking Workshop on Grey Water in the MENA Region” (CSBE-IDRC, Jordan 2007), …
Strategic Program Planning such as the Strategic Intervention Framework the UN Drylands Development Center in the MENA region (through UNDP Lebanon, 2006), the Swiss Development Cooperation Program in South Lebanon (2007) and the Strategic Planning meeting of the RCPLA Network (Resource Centers of Participatory Learning and Action, CDS-DFID 2008),
A flagship assignment was the “Rejecting Violence and Advancing Shared Security” cycle of Youth Seminars which was held in 6 continents between 2003 and 2006 and tackled various forms of violence faced by the Youth: Social injustice (Argentina), Pandemics and HIV-AIDS (Tanzania), Human Trafficking and violence against women (Republic of Georgia), Armed conflicts (Lebanon), Integration of minority groups (Switzerland) globalization (USA), poverty and sustainable human development (Indonesia). and culminated by the organization of the First Religious Youth World Assembly in Hiroshima – Japan (WCRP, 2006)

High confidentiality mission for the Office of the Prime Minister of Lebanon (H.E the late Rafic Harriri) which aimed atestablishing a multiple scenario development scheme for the Wazzani-Hasabani Watershed (the region which was occupied by Israel for more than 15 years and was at the center of the Road Map Plan negotiations at that time). The study was initiated and financed by the Delegation of the European Commission in Lebanon and executed by a consortium of European firms (THALES – PARTEX – SEMA) with additional technical assistance provided by UNDP
Duties included: playing a pivotal role in managing the information flow between the Office of the Prime Minister of Lebanon and the European Union, monitoring and facilitating the work progress of the experts (international team composed of an economist, a socio-economist, an agricultural development specialist and a socio-demographer with national counterpart for each expertise), and facilitating all the investigation meetings held with the different governmental and international agencies about the mission, in addition to contributing to the environment and tourism sections of the study.

Active input in founding and establishing ESDU as a regional center of excellence in R&D in the MENA region, catering for a broad range of action research programs on Sustainable Livelihoods in the Drylands, Participatory Development Communication and Participatory Monitoring & Evaluation of Development projects.
Direct management and/or facilitation of all national, regional and international conferences, seminars and training courses organized by ESDU (more than 20 activities in 4 years) with a wide range of donor institutions such as IFAD, IDRC, FAO, USAID, USDA, World Bank, UNDP, UNCCD, UNEP, etc…
Participation at a decision making level in the management, backstopping, M&E and reporting for several internationally funded participatory research and services projects such as Sustainable Improvement of marginal Drylands: Arsal a Case Study (IDRC, $1.2 M), Technology Transfer & Extension in Major Irrigation Schemes of Lebanon (CDR/World Bank, $1.7M), Enhancing Livelihoods of Poor Farmers in South Lebanon through Community Supported Agriculture (USAID, $1M), the Near East Management Training in Agriculture (IFAD $0.4M),…
Conception and submission of around $3M of winning proposals in 4 years to most of the funding agencies listed above Around 20 international participations in study tours, advanced training, conferences and seminars in the USA, Canada, Germany, Holland, Spain, Italy, France, Greece, Yemen, Jordan, Syria, Tunisia…

Green Line is one of the leading scientific associations for environmental conservation in Lebanon and the Middle East, with a motto to “Preserve the past, conserve the present and give the future a better chance”. The Communication & Outreach Committee is instrumental in expanding membership, building partnerships and increasing the visibility (and subsequently the policy influence) of the Association.
Held key decision making posts at the management of the Association as Head the Communication & Outreach Committee (1997 – 2004), Vice-President (2000 – 2001) and Secretary general (2002-2004). Stepped down as Secretary General in 2004 to allow for the emergence of new leadership but still organically linked to the Association through the Advisory Board which is populated by active members having been elected for 3 terms or more to the Executive Committee
Played leadership roles in the major environmental lobbying and advocacy campaigns such as “Combating the Privatization of the Lebanese Coast”, the “National reforestation Network for Lebanon”, the “Sustainable Transport Campaign”,…
Coordination of the National Commission on Environmental Education (2000), the launching of the Shadow Report for Rio+10 (2002), « The Tree as a Cultural Element in the Mediterranean” (2003)….
Coordination of grassroots development projects « 48 hours in a village » (1998), the « Mobile Environmental Awareness Unit in Rural Areas (1999-2002) and “NESTMEDIS: the Network of Mediterranean Cities for Green Tourism” (2002)
More than 50 local and international media appearance (BBC, CNN, NHK, Times Magazine, …) and more than 40 international conferences and lobbying seminars in Europe and the MENA countries (Italy, Spain, France, Greece, Tunisia, Egypt, Morocco, ..)

Joined ISO in 1994 as consultant for finalizing a project proposal aiming at establishing a plant nursery (AGHRAS) in a site that was used as a military bunker during the Lebanese Civil War, and which will employ ex-militia fighters in the agricultural operations. The project was successfully launched in 1995 and attracted considerable interest from the public opinion due to its innovative post-conflict developmental nature. The project had to be re-located in 1999 and was terminated in 2001 because of land-tenure issues
Additional duties included supervising agricultural related operations in church-owned land across Lebanon and providing additional backstopping in proposal writing @ ISO