Initiative to reform the international aid system in Palestine Aid dependency distorts the climate for Palestinian community development. In fact, Palestinians in the occupied Palestinian territory are the largest per capita recipients of international humanitarian and development aid. Unfortunately, while billions of dollars are being spent, very little development is taking place, and even less that is sustainable. Palestinian citizens of Israel are also subject to distorted donor analyses and severe restrictions. Many donors won’t fund Palestinians inside Israel because Israel is not considered a developing country; others won’t fund them because of the boycott against Israel.
The main problem with aid to Palestinians is not insufficient amounts of aid, but that despite ostensible international support for the principle of self-determination enshrined in international law, Palestinians have no control and very little influence over how development and humanitarian resources are used on their behalf. The current international aid system has the effect of denying Palestinian rights in the development process, not to mention how it undermines aid effectiveness.
For this reason, Dalia Association was founded as the first Palestinian community foundation. It seeks to reduce dependence on international aid by providing an alternative, locally-controlled funding source (and building local and Diaspora philanthropy to sustain it) and advocating for reform of the international aid system in Palestine.
Interviews conducted by Dalia Association with over 150 civil society activists and development professionals described the consequences of dependence on international aid as donor driven agendas, wasted resources, fraudulent practices, and inaccessibility of aid to those grassroots activists best positioned to make real contributions on the ground. Dalia Association also collected 20-30 credible anecdotes revealing shocking waste and distortion in the aid system. Many argue that international aid, while needed to mitigate the harm of military occupation and colonization, is having the effect of disempowering Palestinian civil society by undermining local agendas, ignoring local leadership, discouraging local initiative, and damaging trust.
In Dalia Association’s three years of mobilizing resources for Palestinian civil society, we have collected pages and pages of complaints about the international aid system, including: “They don’t accept proposals in Arabic,” “Grant sizes are too high,” “Donors don’t disburse funds as promised,” “Too much money repatriates to the donor country,” “Donors steal ideas and give them to other NGOs,” and many more. There are rumors that Arab or Muslim donors are different from Western donors, but there is very little actual data to support this contention. In fact, there is almost no high-quality qualitative research upon which well-intentioned donors can rely should they wish to improve their aid policies in Palestine.
To address these challenges, Dalia Association is embarking on an advocacy campaign to reform the international aid system in Palestine. The overall goal of this project is to help Palestinian civil society transform their complaints into strategic, responsible, and reasonable demands for reforms in the international aid system in Palestine and to engage constructively with donors to help them respond.
The project is beginning in December 2009 with focused conversations with civil society activists in the West Bank, Gaza (if logistically feasible), and in Palestinian communities inside Israel. We will raise awareness that international law, conventions and other declarations signed by donors do grant us rights in the aid process. While we appreciate assistance from developed countries, our gratitude does not obligate us to compromise our dignity or agency. On the contrary, we believe that “good donorship” must be complemented by empowered leadership on the recipient side in order to show results.
The focused conversations will result in a list of changes that Palestinian civil society wants to see in the international aid system. Once the findings are compiled, we will release them widely for public comment. Once comments are integrated, we will begin donor consultations to get feedback and deepen the relationships needed to get changes made. Preliminary findings will be presented at the World Congress of Muslim Philanthropists, which is co-sponsoring the study, in Doha in March 2010.
Dalia Association plans to connect our efforts to reform international aid with efforts happening around the world, and hope that our experience claiming our rights in the aid process will influence others to do the same.
More information about Dalia Association is available at www.Dalia.ps or by contacting Nora Lester Murad, PhD, Executive Director, at NoraM@Dalia.ps.
Over 150 participants attended the 2009 Grantmakers East Forum (GEF) in Berlin, Germany. Hosted at the Allianz Stiftungsforum, close to the Brandenburger Gate, the event was provided with a spectacular location for participants to discuss how to ‘do better with less’ and ‘future walls to scale.’We would like to express our gratitude to everyone who attended the event and made the event possible through funding and other resources. Special thanks go to our hosts Allianz Cultural Foundation and Robert Bosch Stiftung.
The Advisory Group on Expansion, consisting of 10 TCFN participants, continues developing plans for expanding the Network to include new areas and including new participants. The advisory group, in fulfilling its commitment to a thoughtful and welcoming invitation process, offers the following vision statement, which captures the intentions and expecations of TCFN’s expansion:
