Abbara

What is the Abbara program?

The Abbara program was launched in 2011 to support independent cultural initiatives and organizations as key actors in building a meaningful cultural sector for their societies. Through the seven rounds it has held so far since it was founded, the program has supported and enabled 76 independent cultural and artistic initiatives and organizations from the Arab region. The program team has continued to accompany them, watching them progress and bearing witness to the considerable difficulties that compelled 28 of them to cease their operations, while 48 of them are still active.

The Arts and Culture sector has endured many challenges in the past decade. In addition to warfare and strife, foreign occupation and interventions, and political upheavals and economic crises that jeopardise the stability the region as a whole, the sector has suffered the absence of the necessary governmental support for arts and culture in most Arab countries, the lack of measures to mitigate the impact of crises on cultural actors and the scarcity of funding sources offering unrestricted core funding.  

In response to such circumstances, Abbara supports cultural entities by helping them build the capacities to render them administratively viable, thereby ensuring their sustainability and ability to evolve independently, and in a manner that builds on local contexts. The program also encourages participant organizations to exchange their knowledge and experiences and to experiment cooperative endeavours. 

Program goals

• To support collective cultural work by training, equipping and guiding the development of independent cultural initiatives and organizations to enable them to devise the most successful structures for cultural work in diverse social, political and cultural contexts.
• To contribute to the development of the cultural sector by testing effective models and approaches to organizational sustainability, in general, and financial sustainability, in particular, with a focus on ensuring the stability and sustainability of independent cultural initiatives and organizations. 
• To address the common challenges to independent cultural work across the Arab region by helping cultural organizations and initiatives forge links and mutual support frameworks  enabling them to share learning and expertise and to develop the means to lay the foundations for a vibrant cultural ecosystem capable of bringing constructive change to its local and regional contexts. 

What does Abbara offer?

• Financial support: Up to €22,000 in core funding that could cover organizational costs such as staffing expenses, rent and upkeep of premises, and running costs. The funding does not cover program activities. This support component lasts for at least 18 months. 
• Training in strategic planning and organizational management: Abbara offers two training workshops supervised by experts in the field and carried out in collaboration with independent cultural organizations from different Arab countries. The training also includes sessions that engage peer learning approaches to current themes related to cultural management. 
• Technical assistance: This component is tailored to each organization on the basis of a needs assessment conducted after the first training workshop.
• Networking: The program provides a space for networking and collaboration by organizing exchanges of working visits between participant organizations and other activities involving cultural organizations from across the Arab region. Contact between active Abbara organizations and Culture Resource continues after the program and sometimes evolves into robust partnerships. 

How it works

• Once the application period ends, the Abbara team performs a preliminary screening of the applications to eliminate those that do not meet the eligibility criteria. 
• The eligible applications are submitted to an independent jury which evaluates the applications on the basis of an established set of criteria devised for this program. After jury members assess all the applications individually, they meet to discuss their results and select the organizations that will benefit from the Abbara program. 
• Two representatives from each beneficiary organization take part in the first training workshop on strategic planning and organizational management. 
• After the first workshop, contracts are signed with the beneficiary organizations on the basis of the first draft of their strategic plan. 
• Each organization receives technical support tailored to its needs for the duration of the contract. 
• Two representatives from each organization participate in the second training workshop which is designed around the needs of the participant organizations.

Program schedule

The call for this program is currently not open, any upcoming rounds will be announced.

Schedule of the current round (Abbara 07):
The Abbara program lasts from 12 to 18 months depending on the needs of each organization. 

• Applications will be accepted as of 10 February, 2022.
• The deadline for submissions is 07 April, 2022 at 16:00 Beirut time.
• The beneficiaries are announced at the beginning of July 2022. 
• The first workshop on strategic planning and organizational management is held in October 2022. 
• Contracts are signed in November 2022.
• Technical support and follow through activities take place in 2023.
• The second workshop designed around the needs of the participant organizations takes place in 2023.

How are participant organizations selected?

A new five-member jury of independent experts in culture and the arts is formed for each Abbara round. They assess the applications according to the following criteria:

• Future vision, goals and potential impact
• Organizational structure, capacities and skills
• The motives for applying to Abbara