Relations between the Ministry of Family and Social Services and capacity building activities in the context of the refugee crises: The case of Şanlıurfa Social Service Centers

The Ministry of Family and Social Services, as an institution that has undergone many changes since its establishment in 2011, has built close relations with international institutions and conducted many partnerships. Turkey's candidacy to the EU and the Syrian refugee crisis have been profound factors for these relations. Due to these two circumstances, international institutions supported the activities of the Ministry and carried out many projects to improve its capacity. In this research, the dimensions of the relationship of the Ministry of Family and Social Services with international institutions from 2011 to 2022 were examined. In this context, cooperation in the EU harmonization process and capacity building activities in the context of the Syrian refugee crisis were determined by scanning the activity reports and strategy documents. One of the main findings of the research is that the capacity building activities carried out regarding the EU candidacy and refugee crisis have similar themes consisting of EU values such as gender equality and human rights, but their objectives differ. While the institutional capacity building activities in the EU harmonization process are in a structure that aims to develop the institutional capacity in the long term and support the social service approach in line with EU values, we can say that the capacity building activities in the context of the Syrian refugee crisis were carried out only for the refugees to access certain services, not the capacity of the entire institution in a holistic sense. In the second part of the study, the effect of capacity building activities carried out by international institutions within the framework of the Syrian refugee crisis on the institutional capacity of the Ministry was investigated. The projects to strengthen the Social Service Centers in Şanlıurfa was taken as an example for the research and semi-structured interviews were conducted with twelve people representing the public and international institutions making use of Allan Kaplan's capacity building theory. The results of the interviews showed that although the projects to strengthen social service centers could be considered successful in inclusion of refugees in social services, their impact on the overall capacity of the institution was limited.