Orient Policy Center Platforms

OPC works as a third-party monitor between project donors and implementing partners. The monitoring and evaluation platform facilitate vital communication between the two and ensures that follow-up is performed actively and regularly. The monitoring and evaluation platform is of added value because it facilitates the projection of results and helps monitor the stages of project implementation, especially regarding activity progress and implementation quality.

OPC uses this platform as an additional layer for capacity assessment and building. It is therefore an “Organization Capacity Assessment Tool” (OCAT) which provides the following:

1. A space for communication, file exchange, and the making of audio and visual calls between the center, partners and any other stakeholders, whether they are project implementors or organizations to be evaluated.
2. The application of assessment tools (surveys, video or audio interviews etc.).
3. A place to display results of the assessment, with various permissions.
4. Regular reports on the activities of participants in the platform, issued by the implementing party or donors.
5. Discussion forums for the exchange of information and experiences.

The process of following up on the expected scenarios of a certain region in Syria is a very complicated and requires continual monitoring of international, regional and local political developments, in addition to military field indicators as well as other indicators. At the same time, no party, regardless of the size of its involvement in the region, can risk falling behind on these scenarios because they provide the basis for the strategic planning of interventions, and shape an organization’s capability to implement programs and reach targets in an active way, or to protect its employees and measure the risks which might endanger the implementation of a project or team.

Since such monitoring requires several specialized teams to implement, and because it is rarely efficient or sustainable for organizations or decision makers to have such teams in-house, OPC offers this service to our partners with tools that are both user-friendly and provide excellent value for money.

The Risk Assessment Platform provides mapping for a number of indicators at the community, sub-district and district levels at any project implementation location to assist our partners in the humanitarian and development sectors in assessing risks that may affect their ability to implement projects, or hinder their efforts to realize planned outcomes and achieve their desired impact within the community. The outputs of this platform are also designed to help them select the most appropriate locations for sustainable implementation.

This platform is based on an in-depth analysis of a set of indicators developed by the OPC research team. Once these indicators are finalized and assigned a numerical value, the OPC data management team designs the equations and algorithms to measure them in order to determine the risk and need levels in each community and build the beta version of the platform. The OPC field researchers then collect the required data at the community level, which is subsequently analyzed by the data management team who proceeded to test the platform and refine its algorithms over several technical stages in order to reach the highest possible levels of accuracy. New indicators may be added to the platform at any stage of the project and the platform is updated periodically according to the partner’s needs.