The Middle East and North Africa Harm Reduction Association (MENAHRA) convened a 2 days meeting with a number of NGOs Sub-Recipient of MENAHRA’s current grant from the Global Fund. This meeting took place in Crowne Plaza Hotel – Dead Sea, Jordan in 12 &13 of January 2016.

The NGOs representatives and participants came from three countries: Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. It is to note that Mrs. Ola Ataya was the main facilitator.

The Goal of this workshop was to retrieving lessons learned during the implementation of the NGOs activities, in addition to reflecting on the sustainability issue for next phase, noting that the joint Concept Note that was submitted by MENAHRA and RANAA to the Global Fund failed to be accepted, which might affect negatively the harm reduction response to key populations and mainly to People Who Use Drugs.
On the other hand, the educational tools and methods were various and creative such as: PP presentations, group works, discussions, role play. The main topics of the sessions were on lessons learned from the NGOs implementation of Harm Reduction, on the challenges and solutions, in addition to the opportunities to improve this work and how its cost might be covered to sustain.

The meeting concluded with a number of recommendations from the participants mainly on: planning for future steps with MENAHRA on ways of funding the NGOs harm reduction activities on advocacy to include harm reduction activities in the national strategic plans of the countries and to continue the provision of this service to the Key Populations.