“Enhancing Social Cohesion at Local Level through Capacity-Building of Migrants and Refugees Assembly” is a pilot project that is organized within the framework of the QUDRA Program under the leadership of the German International Cooperation Agency (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit-GIZ). Adana Metropolitan Municipality is involved as the local practitioner of the project, in which UCLG-MEWA is one of the project stakeholders.
The Project has been launched to strengthen the capacity of the Migrants and Refugees Assembly that was established under Adana Citizens’ Assembly as a platform gathering the host community and refugees, with an aim to ensure social cohesion between the refugees and the host community, to include refugees in decision-making processes, and to ensure a quicker and smoother integration process. Their inclusion in this regard will be developed, through capacity-building and strengthening.
Establishment of the Migrants and Refugees Assembly also aims to involve
non-governmental initiatives in the decision-making processes, as well as citizens’ assemblies. Migrants and Refugees Assembly consists of opinion leaders, representatives of NGOs set up by the host community, asylum seekers and migrants; and representatives of public institutions and other NGOs established to help these groups.
One of the pillars of the project includes a capacity-building training for field experts.
This training program took place at UCLG-MEWA General Secretariat on 9-12 July 2018. During the four-day training, participants gathered information about refugee rights, structural dialogue between host communities and refugees, rights-based approach, facilitation and civic participation techniques and dissemination of social inclusion in municipal services, examined by academics.
The expected outcomes of the Project are;
- Developing the capacity of migrants and refugees assembly under the
Citizens’ Assembly, - Decreasing the risks of migrants and migration regarding social cohesion and social peace,
- Forming a platform involving all stakeholders including NGOs and the public together,
- Initiating a joint decision-making process for enhancing the culture of coexistence,
- One capacity-building expert and two field staff personnel from Adana Metropolitan Municipality Directorate of Migration and Migrants Affairs; and two capacity building experts from the Directorate of Foreign Affairs will gain specialization in the field of migration. The responsible staff will continue to work with the same objectives in the municipality after the end of the project.
- An experts-support team on migration and migrants will be formed in Adana Metropolitan Municipality. The team will determine the strategy that will lead works of the municipality on migration management.
Reporting and publishing the outputs of the Project will be a reference document to show the success of this pilot project and to carry out similar projects in other cities. For ensuring further dissemination of the project, a national closing event will also be organized.