New World Bank Grants for Palestine

-         The World Bank in Washington approved on 6/6/2022 a grant of $30 million...for development policy purposes, to support reforms in the areas of transparency, inclusion, and the green economy in the Palestinian territories. In addition, the Bank will provide another grant of $7 million to provide selected social services, and cash-for-services in the short term..and internet-based job opportunities for the most vulnerable population groups in Gaza...

-        Commenting on that, Kantan Shankar, Director and Resident Representative of the World Bank in the West Bank and Gaza Strip, who was appointed to this post on 1-5-2019, said, "The financial support provided by the World Bank through a new development policy grant builds on previous operations, and supports a diverse set of reforms to strengthen governance and achieve transparency...This grant will help ease some fiscal pressures, and will at the same time focus on strategic priorities, in line with the World Bank Group’s assistance strategy for the West Bank and Gaza Strip, and the Palestinian National Development Plan for the years from 2021 through 2023."

-        The new development policy grant operation, called "Supporting Transparency, Inclusion, and the Green Economy," focuses on reforms aimed at strengthening public procurement practices and increasing transparency...This will in turn encourage strengthening expenditure oversight controls..and thereby create more space in public finances for the necessary productive investments, and increase social spending..The grant also helps the Palestinian Authority’s efforts to meet the needs of priority and most vulnerable groups, through reforms to enhance financial inclusion and budget preparation, in a manner that takes gender equality considerations into account in the main sectors.

-        Consistent with the World Bank Group’s climate change action plan, the new operation focuses on strengthening the Palestinian territories’ capacity to adapt to and be resilient in the face of climate shocks, by adopting a set of reforms to improve governance in the water sector and by introducing amendments to the Environmental Protection Law to reduce greenhouse gas emissions.

-        One of the two grants ($7 million) will also help create jobs in much-needed social service sectors, thereby strengthening human capital and helping young jobseekers and their families lift themselves out of the grips of poverty,

-        The "Center for the Development of Civil Society Institutions" will implement this project and the "Center for the Development of Civil Society Institutions" will subcontract service providers to provide training and support necessary for youth to find self-employment opportunities on the internet. The targeted youth are those aged between 18-34 years.

·       As for my intervention in this explanation....I see that receiving grants from the World Bank is not new, but what caught my attention is that the main purposes of these new grants are to strengthen governance (good governance), and achieve transparency....and to focus on reforms aimed at strengthening public procurement practices and increasing transparency...and strengthening expenditure oversight controls.! This means that public work and spending in the Palestinian territories (as the World Bank officials call them) ..have not reached the level of verification of the transparency standards required by the World Bank..and this once again places us before the persistent obstacle hindering investment, and our failure to earn the trust of international financial institutions, which is our practice of public spending and public work and it also undermines confidence between the Palestinian public and its public institutions, and this is reflected on the Palestinian economy..which needs financing grants for productive and sustainable projects.!

·       After these long years of training and funding of courses..for which we obtained multiple grants to enhance our capacities, transparency, and control of public spending...which apparently have not yet fixed our condition...!. we are in essential need of achieving transparency, disclosure, inclusiveness, and control of public spending.....in our public work and according to proper procedures....so that we can present a better picture of our public performance whether to ourselves, or to the World Bank, and other international institutions. Therefore we must reform our public work system to be cleaner from forms, aspects, and wounds, of corruption in all its forms...and more prepared for financing grants for vital projects for the Palestinian economy...!