Training and Organizational Support

The SFD is interested in the building the capacities of development partners within and outside the SFD and in providing organizational support for some government institutions, NGOs working in poverty alleviation in order to achieve the following general objectives:

• facilitating the SFD work for the objectives of poverty reduction;
• developing effective strategies to encourage community participation, targeting the poor and involving women in development;
• helping the government, represented by the local authority and the executive bodies, to create the appropriate conditions for community development and decentralization support, as well as the adoption of appropriate means to achieve sustainable development; and
• supporting community-based structures that can support  and work with the local authorities in development and putting an emphasis on the optimal use of the available local resources and on using the social capital.

Beneficiaries
the SFD supports a large number of institutions and individuals directly and indirectly. The main target beneficiaries are the local communities, local authorities, civil society organizations, government institutions, SFD consultants and small contractors whose activities aim to reduce poverty.

Society and local communities
The SFD seeks, through education and community organization, to promote the community's role participation in local development. It provides support for communities to organize themselves into "committees for development" and enable them to identify their need priorities and available local resources to address these priorities. It engages the committees representing the community in the project life cycle being implemented in their areas. The SFD also supports the community structures to enable them to develop plans and link those plans to the local authorities ones by setting up dialogue with the local authorities and monitor the success of achieving the plans. It also form and train community committees to use the mechanism of community contracting when implementing development projects.

Government organizations
based on the beneficiary request, the SFD interventions provide training programs or institutional support for some governmental organizations share the SFD the field of activities. These organizations include executive bodies, and governorate and district main offices.
The support is provided after the SFD implements institutional development study. The intervention may be one or multiple phases of support, and each phase is linked to the previous one. The interventions may consist of the following: development of internal regulations, systems, databases, websites and training of staff on computer-related programs and operation, management and maintenance of databases and networks, and training on other administrative areas related to such tasks, in addition to providing some of the necessary equipment.

Non-governmental organizations
The SFD objective to support the NGOs is to improve their capacities in order to enable them to provide their services to beneficiaries and effectively perform their roles as partners in the effective development in the rural and urban areas.
The SFD focuses on organizational and institutional development of a number of NGOs through evaluating the applying organizations taking into consideration the capacity institutional and organizational assessment studies with participation of the concerned organization and the transfer of experience. The interventions may be for the following fields:
 

• integrated support for the development of all aspects of activities in the NGO to contribute to raising the performance of its activities;
• administrative, financial and technical training for a number of NGOs, provided that it is on-site and one-the-job training;
• building partnership with the successful NGOs of the third and fourth levels in order to implement development projects on competitive and transparent bases and on  specific criteria;
  public projects contributing to strengthen the NGO sector in Yemen to be implemented by the SFD or to  be run by NGOs based on a competition; or
• coordinating with the relevant bodies and engage in partnerships to strengthen the NGO sector.

Private sector
The SFD supports the private sector in general in training  consultants working in varied SFD programs, small contractor rural university graduates (RAWFD Program).

Key objectives of supporting the private sector include:

• Provide local staff having expertise and skills human development areas;
• Improve opportunities to explore the best use of local resources;
• guide young people to voluntary work and promote the concept of community participation;
• develop self-help development initiatives and promote the concept of citizenship.

Small contractors
The SFD is keen to build capacities of small contractors in order to activate the local market, help them ensure sustainable source of income, develop this business sector and enable these contractors to expand their activities and competition. The contractors are providing with knowledge and skills related to contracting and technical issues, as well as the practical details that contribute in improving quality. The training is mainly targeting new contractors who apply for civil works projects to the SFD or any other party.

Empowerment for Local Development Program (ELD)

ELD Vision: The ELD Program started in 2007 and focuses on the empowerment of all local levels in development starting from the community and ending in the local authorities. The vision has a clear vision to ensure empowerment and integration of all different levels in order to achieve balanced local development consistent with the national strategies and goals.

ELD message: to contribute to create appropriate institutional environment to bring about local development characterized by efficiency (response to the real needs of the target communities) and efficiency (optimal use of available resources).

ELD Program works by applying the participatory approach with the local communities and their representatives in order to prepare and implement development initiatives based on community need and propelled by reviving the spirit of teamwork and using the methodology of "development planning with participation of the community with the local authority staff in the districts in order to prepare development plans responsive to the community prioritization. ELD also builds capacities of the governorate-level local authorities in strategic planning in order to empower them to develop development plans and coordination mechanisms in order to ensure sustainability of the ELD Program activities in the future.

ELD key objectives
1. Support of the local authority to revive the concept of community participation, to apply base planning and participatory approach, to strengthen targeting and to ease access to basic services.

2. Support the government trends to implement the National for Local Governance Strategy, reinforce the legal texts concerning the application of participatory planning and improving targeting in districts and preparing applicable and realistic development plans.
3. Transfer the skills of community status assessment and analysis and the preparation of development plans to members of the local authority through a two-day learning process within which members of the community move from the stage of providing information to the stage of playing a key role in the development of their communities sustainably, and the exercise of the assignments of community-based oversight and accountability on performance, quality and efficiency of the development interventions.
4. Optimal utilization of local resources through the promotion of community participation and strengthening performance of the local authority to support local developmen

Rural Advocates Working for Development  (RAWFD)

Supporting public libraries

The SFD, early  after the establishment, adopted establishing public libraries. At the beginning of community studies and determining the community needs, the SFD put into account the nature of its interventions, and concluded at the time that the establishment of public libraries will be important incentive for the basic education which is supported by the SFD, in addition to the promotion of cultural development in local communities.  The SFD-supported public libraries are managed by government organizations, non-governmental organizations and sports clubs and school administrations.