Intensive Training Seminar. Trainees attend a six-day lecture program conducted by local and international experts. The lectures range from theoretical concepts to functional skills, exercises and case studies, whereby the participants are continuously encouraged to apply what they have learned to the institutions with which they are involved. The intensive seminar is followed by four workshops, spread over a two-month period and concentrating on skill enhancement. The major goal is to link and apply the skills learned to actual issues of concern in the participants' working environment.
Participants prepare for the workshops by completing practice-oriented writing assignments.
At the close of the training program, each participant is required to submit a final essay. The goal is to incorporate what they have learned and their practical experience into a coherent project. It included lectures on the concepts of civil society in general, and its application in the Middle East in particular. Furthermore, the evolution of Palestinian civil society, its relation to the government and its role in the state-building process were discussed. The main part of the training program focused on the function, purpose, process, and implementation of strategic planning and related issues, such as project design, institutional development, and evaluation and monitoring as part of the planning process.