Community-Based Participatory Research for Efficient Decision-Making in Administrative Units: A Case of Deir Atiyah City, Syria

Decision-making can positively or negatively affect a situation. In Deir Atiyah city (DA), Syria, the decision-making has made it an urban icon among neighboring towns; this is mainly due to the coherence of cooperation between the central and the local government. Thus, to preserve and develop this iconic status of the complex city, decision-making assistance should be established, through organizing, educating, and empowering the community. By conducting community-based participatory research (CBPR) to assist the municipality in making decisions, efficient decisions can be made that are useful to the community. While the study's objective is to conduct CBPR for efficient decision-making, the research aims to build sustainable relations towards a sustainable development plan. The qualitative and quantitative methods of the study included two workshops with the academics, the commons, and the municipality, with a total number of twelve participants. In the qualitative part, the participants discussed and defined the development indicators, while in the quantitative part, they used multiple-criteria decision analysis (MCDA) through ranking and rating the same indicators. By analyzing the ranking and rating of the indicators, some indicators were relatively high such as the industrial investment indicator, while other indicators were relatively low. Since learning is critical in CBPR and for efficient decision-making, a research-based educational platform (The Knowledge Platform) is a proposed project where the community can collectively learn and assist in the decision-making. The research and the project will introduce a new approach to communicating with the government in a coherent discussion toward further development.