Economic Monitoring Report to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee - June 8, 2009 - Back to Resources Page

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Budget support remains indispensable to allow the Palestinian Authority to continue to provide basic services -- and is also an appropriate instrument given the PA’s good performance in public sector management.

Improvements in security in the West Bank have not yet translated into increases in private sector activities -- and Quick-Impact Projects have not yet delivered tangible results.

The large sums of money pledged at the International Conference in Support of the Palestinian Economy for the Reconstruction of Gaza (Sharm El-Sheikh March 2, 2009) have not yet translated into tangible progress towards reconstruction of Gaza due to the extreme closure regime it is under.

In its report to the September 22, 2008 meeting of the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC), the World Bank noted that the Palestinian Authority (PA), Israel, and the international donor community made some progress on the three parallel conditions for Palestinian economic revival, albeit to different degrees: the PA had continued in its path of fiscal and security reform; donors had provided substantial amounts of aid, but the uncertainty of flows made it difficult for the PA to plan its finances; and Israel had announced, and in some cases implemented, a series of steps to remove physical obstacles within the West Bank, which would only have an impact insofar as the number and the scope of the restrictions being addressed were scaled up significantly.

This report reviews actions taken in these fields since the September 2008 AHLC meeting. The report notes the dramatic impact of Israel’s recent three-week offensive in Gaza and analyzes the variety of recovery and reconstruction schemes being explored by the donor community. We find that these have not yet led to any significant impact on the ground due to the continued closure imposed on Gaza. The devastation in Gaza, coupled with a fluid political environment in both the PA and Israel, has made it necessary for this report to revisit the fundamentals of donor support to the PA in view of the long-term goal of establishing an economically viable Palestinian state independent of external aid. Examination through this lens reveals a fundamentally flawed picture.

To download the full report please click below:

Attachment	Size
AHLCJune09Reportfinal.pdf	585.59 KB

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Economic Monitoring Report to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee - June 8, 2009 - Back to Resources Page