| Theme | Country / region | Partners |
|---|---|---|
| Stabilisation and state resilience | Palestine / MENA | Coffey / Tetratech (Lead) Antylles |
The Client
Through the SSRP, 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 in line with the PA’s National Policy Agenda (2017-2022).
The Challenge
The PA faces a fiscal crisis and a complex ongoing political impasse with Israel. There is a need to bring together previously separate components of technical and financial assistance into a coordinated programme. The vision is to improve services for Palestinians through designing technically-grounded, adaptive interventions where the PA expresses strong commitment for reform and improved service delivery.
The Solution
The project seeks to:
i. improved the fiscal stability of the PA;
ii. increased effectiveness of service delivery; and
iii. increased transparency and accountability for the management of public finances;
The project supports 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 project also supports the MoFP, the PMO and GS to strengthen capability in the functions that link these institutions.
Antylles is responsible for all centre of government work building on existing capabilities within the PA and for the provision of strategic PEA/conflict guidance.
The Result
The Antylles Centre of Government Support comprises institution-development to strengthen policy-making, business processes, planning and communications, augment government effectiveness and improved service delivery in some line ministries. We also produce regular PEA updates to guide project decision-making.
While the project is ongoing, Antylles is helping the UK to lay the foundations for the long-term development of a future Palestinian state by fostering the development of the necessary state institutions. UK financial and technical support to the PA is central to this approach. UK support helps to maintain stability and supports the PA to act as an effective partner for peace with Israel. This project also supports improved cooperation between Palestinians and Israelis by fostering constituencies for peace that can generate demand for a return to a peace process and a political solution to the conflict.
The UK is supporting the provision of basic services to meet the immediate needs of Palestinians and mitigating the effects of the occupation on private sector development and humanitarian access. Maintaining stability in the OPTs remains of vital strategic importance to the UK. Risks to stability and the two-state solution have sharply increased and the lack of progress on peace talks contributes to wider regional tensions and extremist narratives. DFID’s support to the PA is a key element of the UK’s overall strategy on the Middle East Peace Process. This project is central to supporting UK priorities.
Antylles has advised the Palestinian government PMO management to incorporate policy development in their strategic planning methodology, and multi-annual and annual planning processes, after a thorough analysis of the existing strategic planning, budgeting and aid management practices and results. The Palestinian government PMO approved the proposed strategic planning approach prepared by Antylles from a set of four different approaches tailor-made to the practices of the Palestinian government. This approach introduces policy development into strategic planning, allows deeper integration of cross-cutting issues in planning and policy development, strengthens resource-informed planning, and introduces priority policy interventions as budget priorities.
The Palestinian government PMO also approved the training and capacity-building approach to introduce policy development at the line ministry level, as part of a longer-term effort to lift the practices of the government of Palestine towards international good practice standards.
Antylles advisers ensured the Aid Policy was designed and drafted including assessment of major issues, agreement on overarching objectives, sets of rules/norms guiding donor-GoP engagement, and annual monitoring indicators to track progress. Also ensured the first data-driven aid report in over 5 years shared by PMO with donors.
Contact our expert with direct experience in this case study: Dr. Gregory Wilson.