On 31 January NCCI organized a general coordination meeting at the office of the Civil Development Organization (CDO), one of NCCI’s members. Similar to the general coordination meetings held at NCCI’s offices in Erbil and Baghdad the meetings in Sulaymaniyah are open fora for NGOs to discuss issues related to NGO operations and humanitarian coordination in general. Furthermore the coordination meetings in Sulaymaniyah are also an opportunity to raise issues specifically related to operations in the governorate.

Fourteen NGOs participated in the meeting on the 31st, which was also attended by the deputy director of the DNGOs and a representative of the Asayish department of Sulaymaniyah.

The first topic of the meeting was reported restrictions imposed by the Asayish on NGO operations in Sulaymaniyah, which was discussed by the Asayish representative and the attending NGOs. The participants then talked about the issue of NGO staff movement within the KRI, with the DNGOs suggesting measures to ease moving personnel between the governorates.

NCCI then presented an overview of the latest developments of its HR/Admin working group and informed the participants about planned NCCI events. Finally the deputy director of the DNGOs stressed the need for capacity building of national NGOs, and invited international NGOs to take part in the strengthening of local civil society.