On the 13th of April NCCI convened the General Assembly for its yearly meeting. During the meeting the General Assembly elected NCCI’s Executive Board for 2016. The Executive Board oversees the daily functioning of NCCI on behalf of the General Assembly and is comprised of seven representatives from NCCI’s members, who are elected for a one-year term by the General Assembly. The Board members include a chair of the Board, a deputy chair of the Board, a secretary and a treasurer. Besides overseeing the operational activities of NCCI the Board appoints the Executive Coordinator and also reviews and approves the applications of prospective member NGOs. The Executive Board convenes at least once every month. Twelve member NGOs had submitted their…

On the 13th of April the NGO Coordination Committee for Iraq (NCCI) held its yearly General Assembly meeting at the Mariana hotel in Erbil. NCCI is a member-led and member-driven NGO coordination platform, and the General Assembly, which is comprised of all NCCI’s member organizations, is the supreme governing body of NCCI. The General Assembly is responsible for formulating and reviewing policies and programs, and adopts NCCI’s multiyear strategic plans. The General Assembly also approves NCCI’s annual activity and financial reports and elects NCCI’s Executive Board. 34 member NGOs attended the General Assembly meeting on the 13th, which started with an overview of NCCI’s activities throughout 2015. Then NCCI presented the findings of the consultations held with local NGOs, which…

In partnership with UNICEF, NCCI conducted the second capacity building workshop to train local NGO staff members and WASH Service Center (WSC) staff that are responsible for managing the ten established WSCs covering the governorates of Baghdad, Anbar, Salah Al-Din and Babel. Employees of the local authorities were also trained during the workshop. This workshop is part of the Optimize the capacity of 10 WASH Service Centres (WSCs) in Baghdad and Anbar governorates to provide effective field coordination and services project that NCCI is executing in cooperation with UNICEF. Ten WSC managers and ten employees of the local authorities received training during the workshop that was held at NCCI’s Baghdad office between five and seven April 2016. The workshop aimed…

NCCI has published its annual report for 2015. The annual report contains an overview of NCCI’s structure, mission and activities during the past year. 2015 was an eventful year, both for NCCI and for Iraq as a whole. During 2015 the humanitarian crisis that erupted in Iraq in 2014 continued unabated, leaving a growing number of people in the country in need of humanitarian support. In the backdrop of this expanding and enduring humanitarian crisis, local and international NGOs stepped up their operations in Iraq, while the United Nations and the cluster coordination system rolled out in force in the country. Under these changing circumstances NCCI continued to fulfill its mission as a member-led NGO platform. Throughout 2015 NCCI coordinated…

In early March the Director of Operations of the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (UN OCHA) John Ging visited Iraq. In preparation for John Ging’s visit, NCCI’s Advocacy Working Group (AWG) prepared a letter, pulling together key issues identified by the NGO community operating in Iraq. The main points presented in the letter included the need for a strengthened cluster system and humanitarian coordination in general, the importance of civil-military coordination, adherence to humanitarian principles and finally alternative ways to sustainably fund humanitarian operations in Iraq. Grasping the opportunity to further stress the issues brought forward in the letter NCCI then hosted a meeting with John Ging and NGOs operating in Iraq. The meeting took place…

In partnership with UNHCR, NCCI delivered a five days capacity building training workshop between 28 February and 3 March 2016 in Baghdad. The workshop focused on the capacity gaps of local NGOs (LNGOs) that were identified during the organizational capacity assessment that NCCI ran in 2015. During this workshop staff members from fifteen LNGOs (30 employees from the NGOs executive management and finance departments) were trained.   In the first day of the training the participants were introduced to strategic planning. During the second day the participants practiced developing operational plans and how to execute these. On the third and fourth days participants were trained on human resources, procurement and financial management. At the last day, the participants were introduced…