The idea of ARC originated in a regional workshop held in Cyprus in July 1987 to re-write the Arabic edition of David Werner's "Where There Is No Doctor". Participants from seven Arab countries agreed that there was a need

a) for health and development workers in the region to be supported in their work by informative, educational and training resources in Arabic, and

b) for networking activities to facilitate the sharing and accumulation of professional experience among them and promote regional communications.

To address such needs, ARC was founded in 1989 by a group of 13 professionals in the fields related to ARC's expected work.

Article 1 of the by-laws states:

The Arab Resource Collective, also known as ARC, is a non-governmental organisation registered legally under the same name

- in Cyprus in 1988 as a private company limited by guarantee under the companies law CAP.113, under the Nº 32784, and working as an offshore company with a non-profit purpose, and

- in Lebanon in 1995 as an association under article 6 of the law of associations of 3 August 1909, under the Nº 118/AD, amended in 2004 to 127/AD.

The founders, who became the first Board of Trustees, agreed a Mission Statement, which was up-dated a few years later to the following:

ARC’s mission is to build on the capacities of every person to develop knowledge and translate rights into reality, so that every person can control the conditions of his/her life, in a just and equitable society.

In order to achieve its mission, ARC works with its partners to develop the resource culture in Arab societies.

ARC adopts:

- a holistic, integrative and inclusive approach,

- collective thinking and collective ownership,

- sustained processes for networking, participation and building partnerships.

ARC’s strategic objective is to work with community-oriented organisations in Arab countries, and enhance their role as agents for the realisation of people’s rights. Together, they seek to identify the needs and challenges they face, and cooperate to

- produce and disseminate relevant knowledge through appropriate materials in Arabic

- develop capacities and skills through training and action-oriented research, particularly on the use of the approaches and resources produced collectively,

- promote and practice collective work and networking among organisations and community workers, and support joint advocacy.

In 1999/2000, we have marked ten years of ARC’s existence by activities which aimed at assessing the collective journey. They included

- a written internal “reading” of our work,

- two regional workshops in which a number of our partners carried out a collective assessment of three regional programmes in the field of childhood,

- and an external review of most of our projects.

In 2001, we continued the collective exercise with our core partners, focusing on planning the work of each programme for the next five years. This assessment and planning exercise was an opportunity to initiate a new phase in ARC’s development.

However, in the years 2003/2004, a serious reduction of funding for programmes has led to reducing the number of staff, slowing down the implementation of programmes, and a review of ARC’s strategic approach. The funding situation was redressed in 2005, reactivating existing programmes and even introducing new ones.

The Board of Trustees established at the founding meeting in 1989, was renewed in 2002, and again in 2007 (see current compostion in appendix 1). In the period from 2007 to 2009, two of the founders retired from senior management duties, and the Board appointed another founder/manager to the post of General Coordinator.