Humanitarian Field Officer Project in north-west Syria Funded by the SCHF, Basmeh and Zeitooneh (BampZ) has been implementing the Humanitarian Field Officers project in Northwest Syria since 2017, to provide humanitarian actors with highly needed information on the ongoing response in the region and to support OCHA with regular sectoral and inter-sectoral assessments and monitoring activities to track the SCHF-funded projects. Since then, BampZ has expanded its operations to include community engagement and obtain feedback from the community on their needs.
Through the Humanitarian Field Officers (HFO) team that is stationed in different locations of the NSAG-controlled areas, this project will enable cross-border activities from Turkey into Syria to tap into trusted, up-to-date, and local sources of information, and disseminate it to be used by the humanitarian community. In consultation with OCHA Turkey, the team will be overseen by the BampZ organization in Gaziantep, Turkey. The project is built around three components and is intended to provide broad support for the formal coordination system, particularly clusters/ICCG.

1-Information gathering
This component focuses on obtaining data on the ground in order to provide reports on the humanitarian situation and context, as well as to support response planning and advocacy. For use in various platforms and products, the data is shared with different units in OCHA. Clusters will be given information on critical needs and gaps, including urgent situations to be addressed. The HFO will also support on the collection of data related to humanitarian access constraints that help with the trend analysis of the Access Monitoring and Reporting framework in close coordination with the Access Unit. 
2-Support the monitoring of SCHF-funded projects.
The HFOs will keep track of SCHF-funded projects. These monitoring activities will be carried out at the SCHF's request and in accordance with the SCHF's monitoring criteria. As projects supported by the SCHF are assessed through the clusters, monitoring them directly increases the quality and accountability of the inter-cluster response. The Humanitarian Field Assistants (HFA) will also receive training on MampE tools and methods to ensure that they collect accurate and relevant data.

3-Community engagement and accountability to affected population:
The project team will conduct community engagement activities to strengthen the humanitarian response by facilitating meetings with the affected communities, humanitarian partners, and other stakeholders to obtain feedback from the community on their needs and shed the light on the appropriate response. The team will inform affected people about the ongoing humanitarian response and their rights and roles in it through awareness sessions and other means. In other circumstances, community participation is organized on behalf of clusters and informs the broader inter-cluster response. The project will enhance the capacity of humanitarian partners on AAP, gender, and inclusion. This would advance three key aims of the Action Plan for Change: a) Facilitate the systematic inclusion of diverse voices and pay special attention to women, children, youth, elderly persons, and persons with disabilities b) Strengthen Syrian civil society and ensure Syrian humanitarian organizations are central to all efforts to engage with affected people, c) Prioritize gender equality and ensure a good gender balance in all humanitarian meetings and coordination mechanisms.
The project builds on lessons learned from the past HFOs project. The information-gathering component is well-established, and the procedure for exchanging specific needs data with clusters has recently been streamlined, resulting in individual cases receiving support. The SCHF monitoring operations that have been carried out thus far have been favorably welcomed, resulting in one of the HFOs being fully committed to this work and the monitoring systems becoming more formalized and upgraded.