Background
Political change in the Palestinian Territories has been highly volatile over the past years. Processes of change occur swiftly and hold high potential for conflict. Coalitions and alliances emerge and collapse within relatively short periods of time. Overall, the institutional and financial framework conditions for reform measures in the Palestinian administration have deteriorated. This hampers the Palestinian Authority’s (PA) ability to fulfill core state functions.
Objective
The fund‘s objective is to support policy and administrative reforms initiated by the Palestinian government for the benefit of citizens in terms of improvements to service provision and specific aspects of good governance. The fund also aims to strengthen the capacities of Palestinian government bodies regarding strategic planning and implementation of corresponding reform programmes.
Approach
The product-oriented Fund for Policy Advice and Reform (PARF) provides the PA with technical advice, training and in-process support. The fund operates on the basis of applications. This means that the institutions of the PA that are eligible for support propose reform measures to be financed from the fund. Requests for support are evaluated and selected by a steering committee according to agreed criteria and then implemented jointly by German and Palestinian partners. Activities are implemented in line with key principles of good governance and the PA’s development priorities as stated in the Palestinian National Development Plan 2014-16 and underlying policy documents outlining the approach towards statehood.
Results achieved
• Institutionalisation of the Accreditation and Quality Assurance Commission (AQAC) by producing a set of clear, coherent and validated by-laws that span the full spectrum of higher education, and increasing the efficiency of the Commission’s operations by improving workflow and communication channels while also improving punctuality of the services offered to higher education institutions.
• Designing and implementing an efficient monitoring and evaluation system for the agricultural sector at the Ministry of Agriculture to support proper policy formulation, planning and programming, and to develop innovations and interventions to address identified sector problems.
• Improving the Property Tax Directorate’s capacity in terms of property tax assessment and collection by upgrading the database and applications systems to include new modules and functions.
• Enforcing good governance practices in industrial licensing and inspection and services by improving the policy, legal and regulatory framework and administrative mechanisms in cooperation with the Ministry of National Economy.
• Developing a procedures manual for all services of the Ministry of Social Social Affairs that describes proper and high quality provision of services including detailed plans and actions to be taken by the staff.
• Building the capacity of the Palestinian Maintenance Fund (PMF) to enable it to provide better services for its beneficiaries by developing the PMF policies, the support and empowerment referral programme, and human resources and archiving manuals.
• Development of an online portal to support the improvement and enhancement of the services provided by the Ministry of Labour’s employment offices to young Palestinians who are about to leave school or finish their vocational training, technical education or university studies and are planning their first career steps. The overall objective of this portal is to bridge the gap between the demands of the labour market and the chosen technical/vocational specialties.
• Conceptualisation of adequate technical specifications and standards through the production of a roads safety manual in cooperation with the Higher Traffic Council and the Ministry of Transportation.