The UK Government is working with the Palestinian Authority (PA) to support fiscal sustainability, build capability and accountability and increase the effectiveness of service delivery, through the Stability, Services, and Reform Programme (SSRP) in line with the PA’s National Policy Agenda (2017-2022).
The SSRP programme will support three government bodies: the Ministry of Finance and Planning (MoFP), the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), and the General Secretariat (GS). In addition to supporting their individual mandates, the programme will also support the MoFP, the PMO and GS to strengthen capability in the functions that link these institutions. SSRP may also work with line ministries, as determined by DFID and the PA.
Antylles is part of a winning consortium of global development firms led by Coffey International and has been tasked with providing technical assistance to the State of Palestine’s Centre of Government.
Specifically, the SSRP will build on existing capabilities within the PA across three areas of the public administration:
- Centre of Government Support: institution-development to strengthen policy making, business processes, planning and communications, augment government effectiveness and improved service delivery in some line ministries.
- Public financial management: working to underpin fiscal stability, and reduce fiduciary and corruption risks, drawing heavily on the 2017 – 2022 PFM Strategy.
- Revenue: strengthening tax enforcement, compliance, and improving the business environment.
There are two key features of the SSRP technical assistance approach to implementation:
Local ownership. This meansworking hand-in-hand with the PA to identify priority areas for technical assistance, emphasising the importance of government-led change to ensure that activities align with political and institutional realities. This will lead to implementing changes that are contextually legitimate and relevant. SSRP will use technical assistance to coach and mentor MoFP, PMO and GS staff, not to substitute capacity.
A flexible and adaptive approach. This means we direct our support into priority activities defined with our counterparts where the PA has the intent, capability and authority to act. Throughout the project, we will use ongoing analysis of the political economy and organisation capabilities to understand the available space for change and direct our engagement with the PA.