In its session held on Monday, 17 August 2009, the Council of Ministers approved an
approach for developing the Palestinian National Plan 2011?2013. Essentially, the approach
aims to create sectoral and cross?sectoral strategies as an entry point to developing the
Palestinian National Plan. To institutionalize the approach of developing sector strategies,
this Guidance Manual has been prepared as a tool to help Palestinian ministries and public
agencies produce new sector strategies and/or review and develop existing ones. In order to
meet the challenges of development outlined in the Palestinian National Policy Agenda and
the Palestinian Reform and Development Plan, sector strategies need to become more
credible and realistic. Therefore, the primary purpose of this document is to set out the
principles, procedures and practices that should guide staff working in Palestinian public
sector institutions in identifying priorities and formulating sector strategies through a
consultative process in partnership with relevant civil society organizations, the private
sector, and international bodies.

The instructions set out in this document will help produce high?quality sector strategies,
which will also inform the work of local actors to identify the Palestinian strategic priorities
and help international partners to channel support in line with these priorities. This
Guidance Manual must be used by all public institutions in Palestine and their partners
when setting out priorities and producing sector strategies. As the Palestinian budgeting
process is moving from “item budgeting” to “program and performance budgeting”,
national strategies must be consistent with, and inform sector strategies. There is a need to
enhance existing processes, institutional arrangements and procedures according to our
own Palestinian needs, priorities and resources. Therefore, sector strategies should be
developed and implemented through a coordinated set of participatory and continuously
improving processes of policy analysis, debate, planning, implementation, monitoring and
evaluation. This is a critical element in building the Palestinian State and securing our socioeconomic
development.