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| Prime Minister Salam Fayyad inaugurating olive harvest season in Jayyous village, Qalqilia on 10 November 2012. Photo by photojournalist Mustafa Abu Dayya, Office of the Prime Minister. |
Palestinian Institutions A Story of Perseverance
http://www.thisweekinpalestine.com/details.php?id=3981&ed=217&edid=217
By Salam Fayyad
In
late August 2009, the Palestinian government introduced a
state-building plan that set ambitious goals for Palestinian
institutions and sought to arrive at a point of institutional readiness
on a par with established states. This plan included the implementation
of hundreds of projects, such as schools, healthcare facilities, and
other infrastructure. The government also implemented far-reaching
reforms in the financial, judicial, governance, and security sectors
with efficacy.
In conjunction with the reforms and state-building effort, the government decreased its reliance on outside assistance by 60 percent in five years, in relation to the GDP, by improving tax collection and enacting serious fiscal reform, as well as creating the legal and institutional framework to encourage private-sector-led development. In addition, per capita income returned, in real terms, to its pre-2000 levels. In other words, the Palestinian economy recovered from the output losses sustained as a direct consequence of the tightening of Israeli restrictions during the years of the second Intifada.
But conceptually, the significance of this enterprise lay in the translation of the Palestinian political context and agenda into reality by building efficient, accountable, and responsible institutions of the state that can provide citizens with the best services possible, despite the limited means.
This was not about roads, buildings, or infrastructure, despite their importance. This plan was about statehood, citizen participation, and enfranchisement. It was based on the vision of establishing a functional framework where government is accountable and citizens participate in the widest and most effective way possible in decision-making and governance.
In conjunction with the reforms and state-building effort, the government decreased its reliance on outside assistance by 60 percent in five years, in relation to the GDP, by improving tax collection and enacting serious fiscal reform, as well as creating the legal and institutional framework to encourage private-sector-led development. In addition, per capita income returned, in real terms, to its pre-2000 levels. In other words, the Palestinian economy recovered from the output losses sustained as a direct consequence of the tightening of Israeli restrictions during the years of the second Intifada.
But conceptually, the significance of this enterprise lay in the translation of the Palestinian political context and agenda into reality by building efficient, accountable, and responsible institutions of the state that can provide citizens with the best services possible, despite the limited means.
This was not about roads, buildings, or infrastructure, despite their importance. This plan was about statehood, citizen participation, and enfranchisement. It was based on the vision of establishing a functional framework where government is accountable and citizens participate in the widest and most effective way possible in decision-making and governance.
As political and diplomatic efforts were to advance the political agenda to end the occupation and establish a sovereign state on the land Israel occupied in 1967, with East Jerusalem as its capital, the government was to create the needed institutional framework to carry out the responsibilities of a full-fledged sovereign state.
This vision, with all that it entailed by way of self-imposed benchmarks and priorities, was not adopted because its elements were prerequisites to Palestinian statehood. The right to live as free people, with dignity, in a country of our own, is an absolute, natural, and national right of the Palestinian people that enjoys unanimous recognition from the international community. We unilaterally set these goals in order to create institutions capable of performing to the satisfaction of our public and in a manner worthy of their sacrifices in our long struggle for freedom. The concept was to create enough positive momentum to push the world to take practical steps to help end the occupation, which would enable us to fulfil our potential and enjoy our right to live in our sovereign state.
The State of Palestine is now a regional leader in the areas of fiscal transparency, fighting corruption, and social assistance programmes. In the public sector, women have taken their rightful position in leadership and decision-making positions, including the police and judiciary. Women also head significant and world-acclaimed public institutions, such as the Central Bureau of Statistics and the Capital Market Authority, and for the first time, a woman became a Governor and six women assumed key cabinet positions, and in the process, made the Palestinian government, at least in this sense, the most progressive in the region.
In line with these institutional achievements, the level of international awareness and engagement rose. Countries and regional blocs, such as the European Union, adopted progressive positions regarding occupied East Jerusalem and Palestinian statehood.
Of equal significance, the international donor community adopted the Palestinian government’s development priorities, affirming its commitment to investing in areas classified as C, which make up more than 60 percent of the West Bank, and supporting Palestinian development and perseverance in East Jerusalem. This supports our standing position: that such development efforts are essential to contributing to rolling back the occupation and realising Palestinian sovereignty.
These international positions and actions, among others, are steps in the right direction because they align policy with practice and bring both into harmony with international law and the standing legal and moral obligations that states have towards enabling us to establish our own state.
Two years ago, the international community recognised our efforts and stated unanimously that Palestine boasts the institutions of a functional, established state. In addition to this recognition, the international community and specialised agencies also recognised what we have affirmed all along: in order for us to protect what we have achieved thus far and develop further, as is our right, the Israeli occupation must end.
The punishing, unnatural condition of living under an oppressive occupation denies us our inalienable right to live in a free country of our own, empowered to develop our lives and economy to their full potential. That has been our message all along and for the past two years, it has been the world’s standing position.
Ironically, around the time we succeeded in getting world recognition of our institutional readiness for statehood in early 2011, the Palestinian economy was beginning to suffer the ill effects of financial difficulties, which subsequently turned into a deep financial crisis. This was due to a shortfall in foreign aid and it was further vastly complicated by Israel’s withholding of our tax revenues.
Sadly and wrongly, some claimed that the ensuing failure on the part of the government to meet its financial obligations on time reflected a lack of readiness for statehood. I say “wrongly” because this claim disregards the fact that sovereign and developed states that have been around for centuries could face, and in fact have faced, serious economic and financial crises. But in no way and at no point did such financial crises form a basis for asserting that any one of these countries no longer qualified for statehood.
In our case, we said all along that a distinction needs to be made between lack of functionality due to financial difficulties, on the one hand, and lack of institutional capacity causing dysfunction, on the other. I maintain that the financial difficulties we have faced and continue to face in no way detract from our institutional readiness, which has been acknowledged universally, including in the landmark resolution adopted by the United Nations General Assembly last November.
For despite the deep financial crisis and the government’s inability to meet its financial obligations towards its employees and partners on time, Palestinian institutions exhibited resilience and determination. Our institutions continued to provide vital services to the public, despite disruptions and unrest, including a devastating storm, the likes of which Palestine had not seen in six decades.
This crisis risked striking at the Palestinian spirit, which insists on building and moving forward towards freedom. It risked implanting despair and frustration as well as paralysing the functional and accountable institutions that Palestinians have built. That must not be allowed to happen. We are determined to protect our right to establish a sovereign state whose institutions are ready and capable to tap into the potential we have been unjustly denied as a people.
Palestinians have a long and prosperous history of entrepreneurship and success that often seems to be achieved against all odds. As far back as the mid-1800s, Palestinian educators, artists, journalists, philanthropists, and entrepreneurs made an indelible imprint on their fields in the region and worldwide. Since the Nakba 65 years ago, our resilience and innate optimism have been key to our people’s survival and perseverance. And while the reality of occupation and the absence of a political horizon inevitably cause frustration and may even produce despair, they cannot in our case lead to a sense of surrender to circumstance or defeat.
The State of Palestine will materialise. This is an historic inevitability whose achievement we, as a people, have helped accelerate by staying steadfast and deeply rooted in our homeland, building where the occupation demolishes and planting where it uproots.
Institution building in Palestine was and will continue to be about reflecting our people’s unassailable spirit and determination to realise and enjoy freedom and provide them with nothing less than what they rightly deserve: excellence. That is why it is a continuing effort, one that can and will withstand adversity. This is an endeavour motivated by the most powerful and universal of all ideas: freedom and our natural right to enjoy it.
His Excellency Salam Fayyad is Prime Minister of the State of Palestine.
