Advancing decentralised development in Palestine will foster self-reliance. This could serve as a strong basis for reconciliation among Palestinians and Israelis.

Decentralised governance administrations appeal to a broad spectrum of social scientists, activists, and people who seek sustainable growth. By implementing a range of local development projects across a country, decentralisation emphasises subnational participation, cross-sectoral partnership, and local control.

Essentially, socio-economic and eco projects identified by the local communities who manage and gain from them satisfy the key determining factor for sustainability: people’s participation. Global evaluations have underscored this over time. Indeed, centralisation is a primary cause of social problems, so pursuing goals that reflect local desires could alleviate causes of alienation and deep human dissatisfaction and dysfunction in society.

In Palestine, community-built decentralisation that forges mutually beneficial ties among Palestinian people could reduce their economic and political dependence on Israel and alleviate dissatisfaction and feelings of alienation in their lives. In this case, development projects are made to be responsive to local groups’ self-described needs, integrate available know-how, are managed by the beneficiaries, and utilise public and private partnerships to conduct project implementation and evaluation.

Promoting self-reliance is a vital factor for Palestinians. In addition to community determination of needs and programs, self-reliance also involves seeking and investing national and international revenue in order to realise these initiatives. For example, enhancing self-reliance and reducing the measure of economic international dependency are fully consistent with dedicating financial resources from external sources to achieve locally defined goals, such as in food security, women’s empowerment, and school infrastructure.

International experiences in recent generations have shown how development movements that arise from applying the participatory approach at the local level can help to improve conditions and opportunities, prioritise actions, and implement sustainable enterprises. The challenge that national cases suggest worldwide is the need to overcome the lack of success in linking or federating these movements in order to induce internal structural changes, such as de-linking from the exorbitant degree of dependency of one country or people upon another.

However, studies and evaluations over the past decades have also highlighted that even if people are free to participate in such decision-making, they may not feel that their voices and needs are valid, or they will be unable to identify specifically what they most want in their lives. Historically marginalised community members (rural people, women, and youth) may lack self-belief or the chance to forge their vision forward.

The first step to creating this self-reliance for community-driven decentralisation is empowerment workshops. These can help community members have a clear sense of their preferred enterprises by promoting confidence, decision-making, and other capabilities. Decentralisation of development could be the critical driver of Palestinian renewal, particularly in terms of strengthening democratic processes and citizens’ participation in decision-making regarding their community and national future. The continued divisions between Fatah and Hamas and the effects of Israeli occupation heavily impede the human service work of Palestinian civil society in the West Bank and Gaza. Israeli policies in East Jerusalem have also seriously undermined the work of Palestinian civil organisations in their missions of human development.

Freedom to repeatedly associate unfettered among all members of neighbourhoods so that they may plan and act upon project consensus is the hallmark of the decentralisation strategy. The approach becomes encumbered when there are restrictions on people’s movements, fear, and the lack of assuredness felt by local people that they can accomplish their projects.

Empowerment promotes critical reflection and strengthens marginalised people and groups. This then segues to local sustainable development, organisation-building, and national self-reliance, with the intention to reduce Palestinians’ exorbitant level of economic dependence upon Israel. With strengthened capacities, the mission and emphasis on community participation of Palestine’s Ministry of Local Development, headquartered in the West Bank, can play a key role in advancing local development movements.

Furthermore, this empowerment approach involving community participation and inclusive dialogue bears features of reconciliation processes that promote mutual respect and caring. For example, groups who conscientiously set goals and identify necessary issues for resolution enhance the personal empowerment and adaptation of their individual members. In this approach, trained facilitators provide thoughtful inquiry to continuously deepen participants’ introspection, which serves as an implicit acknowledgement of the value of their narrative-sharing. Such affirmation is vital and fully consistent with the beginning phases in managing reconciliation.

Palestine-Israeli reconciliation should be founded on local Palestinian communities knowing and pursuing the development projects most important to their localities. Reconciliation in this form creates partnerships based on locally expressed goals, rather than externally presumed ones, which is necessary for effective international exchange. Palestinian community project design and management should be a fundamental purpose and guide in any new or amended treaty.

This analysis focuses on locally applied methodologies within the conditions of Palestine and with the Palestinian people and building a decentralised development system. Its projections are based on global literature and observation on the launching and magnitude of local participatory movements. Sustainability alters internal national structures as they relate to dependency conditions and may redefine Palestine’s relationship with Israel and the world.

Dr Yossef Ben-Meir is a sociologist and President of the High Atlas Foundation in Morocco.

This article is published under a Creative Commons Licence and may be republished with attribution.