Lebanon Support Releases Its New Portal Under The Name Of Daleel-Madani.org On November 7, 2011

On 7 November 2011, Lebanon Support, Information Center on Emergency, Recovery, and Development, launches the alpha release of the second version of Lebanon’s most accessed portal on civil society work in Lebanon, with a million and a half pageviews per year.
The new version, under the name of “daleel-madani.org”, contains information on 1300 (and counting) national and international organization (including, NGOs, INGOs, IOs, Governmental Agencies, etc.), including detailed information on more than 900 emergency, recovery, and development projects implemented in Lebanon since 2007. The online library of “daleel-madani.org” currently contains 700 categorized resources, expected to become 1400 resources by the end of the year. They range from minutes of meetings, to maps, to field reports, to national studies.
“daleel-madani.org” will keep many other services, such as the Job Vacancies section, one of the most trusted sources for job vacancies in the humanitarian and development sector in Lebanon providing authenticated information on 700 jobs per year.
Lebanon Support is an independent non-governmental, non-religious, non-political, and non-profit making Emergency, Recovery and Development information center.
Established in 2006 through a partnership initiative between Handicap International, Mada Association, and Lebanon’s Ministry of Social Affairs, Lebanon Support was registered independently as a National Non-Governmental Organization in November 2008. Lebanon Support’s main operational framework is focused on information sharing and management, production and delivery, aiming at enhancing the knowledge base and the collaboration among civil society actors and development, recovery and emergency actors, to best respond to the emerging needs of the vulnerable communities in Lebanon and to increase the level accountability towards the beneficiaries and society at large.
Lebanon Support believes that an informed civil society is an efficient and effective civil society. This allows it to develop adequate strategies and interventions so as to reduce existing vulnerabilities in the country. Within the framework of this strategy, Lebanon Support released, in August 2006, the first version of a civil society portal under the name of Lebanon-support.org which proved to a be a important necessity to civil society work and interaction in Lebanon in emergency and recovery settings as well as in peaceful times and development work.
The portal has since been gaining a wider audience and members. It is currently visited by an average of 25,000 unique visitors per month, and records more than a million and a half pageviews per year. It has more than 1,300 registered organizations which is a 325% increase compared to 2007’s 400 registered.
The members range from large bodies with a worldwide presence to smaller, specialist organizations working in certain regions or with specific groups of people, and functioning in Lebanon. The portal also provides information on more than 700 job vacancies per year, and is considered as one of the most trusted sources for job vacancies in the humanitarian and development sector in Lebanon.
In 2010, and after thorough study of the portal’s usability trends and information needs among civil society members in Lebanon, Lebanon Support, in partnership with the Ministry of Social Affairs’ NGO Unit, developed the idea and the concept of a second version of the portal which would have much better usability standards and additional services for member organizations, and allowed heightened accessibility to information. Unfortunately, the Ministry of Social Affairs’ NGO Unit was closed down in 2010, and Lebanon Support committed itself to continue developing the project on its own.
On November 7th, 2011, Lebanon Support will be releasing the second version (in alpha release) of the “Lebanon-support.org” portal under the name of “daleel-madani.org” daleel-madani.org is a civil society portal and public domain. It aims to enhance the availability of and accessibility to information about civil society and state intervention, as well as to strengthen civil society cooperation in Lebanon.
daleel-madani.org is conceived conceptually and practically from the right to freedom of information, as addressed by the United Nations General Assembly in 1946, declaring that: “Freedom of information is a fundamental human right and ... the touchstone of all the freedoms to which the United Nations is consecrated.”
Lebanon Support believes that daleel-madani.org would serve as a mean to practice that right through practical online tools that allow for more transparency on the work of various actors in development as well as enhance accountability of projects and programs by the beneficiaries and the general public.
Thus the design and architecture of daleel-madani.org has a dual purpose:
1) on one hand, it provides civil society in Lebanon with the means and ability to share, publish, and disseminate information and knowledge;
2) on the other hand it provides the general public with a public domain of information and a means of communication with civil society organizations.
The new release is an alpha version of the portal, which provides a series of different service, such as: publishing resources, newsletters, events, and post job vacancies in addition to existing services. It provides a wide-range library containing more than 700 categorized resources including, studies, statistics, maps and guides among others and provides extensive information on both the July 2006 Israeli war on Lebanon and the Nahr El-Bared war.
The new release is predicted to encourage a higher rate of visitors, and to enhance participation levels of civil society organizations. It also provides much higher usability standards and a much more developed organization of information and resources. Lebanon Support encourages all NGOs to update their profile information on daleel-madani.org as well as for new NGOs to register on the portal.