LINKS Platform

Lebanon is entangled in a continuously worsening socio-economic crisis. The absence of timely macro solutions, and a comprehensive social assistance program to buffer these shocks, left gaping holes in social services urgently needed to respond to the acute basic needs, which include food assistance, education, protection, shelter, and health services of the most vulnerable. The creation of an environment that grants the opportunity of access to information, resources and services has been a high necessity, as it could mitigate and better prepare response to these multilateral risks and vulnerabilities. Thus, under the “Enabling Local Initiatives” project funded by USAID Bureau of Humanitarian Assistance, CARE International in Lebanon established a digital platform, entitled “LINKs Platform”, in order to cover the mentioned gap in the humanitarian sector. LINKs stands for Linking, Informing, Networking, and Knowledge Sharing. The LINKs Platform targets the four most prominent stakeholders in the humanitarian settings: people in need, local organizations, and resource providers (individual/institutional donors), and Volunteers and Experts. The platform facilitates the coordination between the local organizations and the other mentioned target groups, as well as the coordination between the local organization themselves. LINKs also includes a section called “trends and alerts” that notifies the users of the platform (local organizations and donors) about the gaps and needs based on the interactions on the platform. As such, organizations will be able to design projects that are tailored based on needs in communities. Furthermore, the platform will include a DRR section that will enable a disaster risk management mechanism and will facilitate response in case of any disaster. This section will be based on an early warning system and will allow communication and role distribution between organizations. Finally, the platform will include an e-learning section, which aims to develop the capacities of the registered local organizations’ staff.