Executive Summary

This research discusses partnerships with and among grassroots and organizations in Northwest Syria. Grassroots in the course of the research means volunteering teams and CBOs only, and the concerned organizations are those who are establishing or supporting partnerships in Northwest Syria. The research focuses on the motivations of partnering and draws a line between internal motivations and external motivations. It also analyses the benefits and the challenges of partnerships at different stages as well as foundation and dissolving procedures. This research sheds light on the cross-conflict partnerships as a new model which is receiving conflicting reactions within the Syrian context. The role of partnerships in localization the human response is also uncovered thoroughly. Finally, recommendations from the Grassroots and the concerned organizations are presented to improve professionalism and sustainability of partnerships to foster localization.
And this research is part of a series of studies conducted by the organization 'DBW' to promote Meaningful Youth Participation and implement the Youth, Peace, and Security Agenda 2250

Design and Methods:

The research adopted a mixed method design to uncover partnerships from different aspects using both primary and secondary data sources. Several toolkits issued by international actors were studied in addition to academic papers on partnerships and networking in general. Qualitative data was collected by conducting 27 semi-structured interviews with grassroots in/out partnerships/ 4 representatives of concerned Syrian organizations were also interviewed. At a later stage, 3 FGDs with team leaders were run to further explore certain themes such as; partnership challenges and localization via partnerships. A thematic approach was conducted to analyse collected data and produce the findings.