The Dilemmas in Palestinian National Planning in Light of the War on the Gaza Strip
Public strategic planning efforts and its role in promoting socioeconomic development, improving public services, and enhancing living standards in Palestine have been severely impacted by the huge challenges imposed by the Israeli occupation. In addition to the strict siege and successive wars on the Gaza Strip since 2006, this has led to a decline in economic development and an increase in social challenges. Over the past decade, the occupation has imposed a financial blockade on the Palestinian government under various pretexts and has repeatedly pirated commercial clearance funds. All of this has greatly limited the Palestinian government’s ability to provide the necessary budgets for developing service infrastructure and providing essential services to citizens.
Since mid-2023, the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) and the General Secretariat of the Council launched intensive efforts to prepare the National Development Plan (NDP) for 2024-29, in partnership and consultation with numerous government departments. These efforts resulted in the preparation of the general framework of the NDP, and the completion of drafts of strategic plans for ministries and government institutions for 2024-29. Planning processes conformed to updated planning methodologies approved by the Council of Ministers. According to the initial plan, subsidiary plans were to be completed by the end of 2023 and then approved for implementation in 2024. However, as a result of the war on Gaza and Israeli occupation of the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, work on these plans and the NDP has been suspended, with the government redirecting its efforts to emergency planning for 2024.
Without a doubt, the current war has had major economic and social repercussions for both the Gaza Strip and the West Bank. In light of difficult economic and social realities, plans formulated as part of the government’s strategic planning process (for 2024-29) no longer respond to new realities following October 7, 2023. Politically, subsistence and resistance to occupation characterize economic policy challenges today. Formulated plans were built based on a different economic and social reality of resilience and building. Therefore, they need revision, in order to factor in the need to respond to dramatic changes. The form, structure, and mechanisms of strategic planning must also be reconsidered in light of new realities (political, economic, and social) resulting from the war: the mass destruction of infrastructure; runaway unemployment, poverty, and food insecurity; all coinciding with an unprecedented crisis in the PA’s finances.
The purpose of this background paper is to shed light on the reality of strategic planning in the government and within the public sector in Palestine, providing the historical background for the development of strategic planning, its duration, and challenges across each planning phase. The paper also discusses the direction of future strategic planning, in light of unprecedented difficulties and complexities in current economic and social realities, as a result of the destruction caused by the war. The discussion aimed to assess the capability of existing strategic plans and frameworks to respond to the current realities, which is witnessing a significant deterioration across all economic,social, and environmental indicators. It also questioned whether there is a need to reconsider future planning processes at government that combine the West Bank and Gaza Strip into one unit.
