Photo courtesy GATE Lebanon, © RET Germany

Article by Carine Harouny, Operations and Communications Officer for GATE Lebanon, RET Germany’s local implementing partner

AKKAR, LEBANON – Under a BMZ-funded project implemented by RET Germany in partnership with GATE Lebanon, twelve local organizations across Akkar Governorate are getting the tools they need to serve their communities more effectively.

Local NGOs, women’s associations, and community-based organizations are often the first point of contact for vulnerable families in Akkar. They run the protection services, the food processing cooperatives, the sewing workshops, the tourism initiatives, and the women’s empowerment programs that hold communities together. But many of these organizations operate with limited equipment, unreliable power, and stretched administrative capacity, and that is the gap this initiative addresses.

Photos courtesy GATE Lebanon, © RET Germany

As part of the project, GATE Lebanon provided institutional capacity-strengthening support to 12 local NGOs and associations working across protection, food processing, sewing, tourism, and women’s empowerment. The support package included office equipment, training materials, renewable energy systems, safety equipment, and other operational resources, all selected to match each organization’s specific needs.

This support helps to:

• Strengthen the institutional and operational capacities of local organizations.
• Improve service delivery to vulnerable communities.
• Enhance administrative, training, and operational efficiency.
• Increase resilience through renewable energy solutions.
• Promote safer and more sustainable working environments.

By investing directly in the organizations already rooted in Akkar’s communities, the project builds capacity that will outlast any single grant cycle, strengthening the local response to displacement, gender inequality, and economic hardship for years to come.

The project “Improving Food Security, Livelihoods, and the Inclusion of Women and Vulnerable Groups, and Promoting Gender Equality in North Lebanon,” funded by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development of the Federal Republic of Germany (BMZ) and implemented by RET Germany in partnership with GATE Lebanon.

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