It has been told that a fisherman was fishing a lot of fish with his angle, so the other fishermen envied him. One day, they got extremely angry at him as he was throwing the big fish back to the water while keeping the small ones. When they asked him why, he said that his frying pan is not big enough for the big fish.
This is Gaza status with its donors. It was accustomed to deny what is imposed over it. Moreover, Gaza programmed itself to accept the bitter reality and disablement that can’t be overcome. Thus, the developmentally guided qualitative funding has become the big fish which Gaza frying pan can’t contain whether for desire, ignorance, or policy.
It’s almost 85 international institutions working in Gaza Strip including representative and executive offices. That number increased after the war against Gaza which seems like a congestion of salesmen in a public market. In addition, there are 950 civil charity institutions and some non-profit organizations working in Gaza Strip, yet the active ones are about 70 civil institutions.
In 2007, a master study of some specialist estimated that the average of the civil institutions arbitrage was a billion dollar for a year where more than 45% constitutes administrative and logistic expenses and salaries.
Some of the contributions is spent on projects for infrastructure, sewerage, and rebuilding the destroyed houses as a result of the war on Gaza Strip. However, the biggest part of funding is spent for relief purposes rather than development and sometimes the consumptive development rather than the productive, not to mention the programmes related to the gender, human rights, and the dialogue of civilization. Those programmes forget that who couldn’t reach the pyramid base, wouldn’t be able to reach the top.
It’s because the absence of a national strategy for dealing with funding. Before it’s a policy of donors, we, as beneficiaries, get rid of the big ideas, wonderful dreams, and potential possibilities for implementing productive developing projects that help on building a state of institutions and rise of economy. It’s just a limited vision where we accept the short-range effect while ignoring the long one looking for fulfilling a quick achievement, lots of money, and effortless work. Most of our institutions –except what works according to a developmental vision- change the goals they formed just for getting a donation corresponding to the donor’s conditions.
Probably, the most apparent shortage comes from the government as the institutions’ roles are complementary, not competitive in accordance with a national plan supposed to be previously set. Till the moment, I can’t notice a true role of the government for coordinating and unifying the efforts of the civil and international institutions which work in Gaza. It’s a clear dereliction of following such great issue.
This dereliction made every institution work for its own agenda and the donors’ conditions where many projects are implemented in the name of the Palestinian people benefit without realizing any real impact. I particularly mention the UNRWA organization which has turned the Palestinian people into relief receivers who don’t aim at development. The organization negatively programmed people to receive a monthly food aid and some cash which resulted in a zero developmental impact.
Relief works have negatively affected the Palestinian society where a lot of workers gave up their jobs lest somebody tells on them, and accordingly they lose their financial grant or food aid.
Such culture should be internally corrected and enhanced through the practice of the civil institutions for a patriot role far from obeying to the donors’ conditions.
Our society must reject the relief principle and conceptualize it within the right frame rather than the dependence of more than 80% of Palestinians on the helping aids provided by UNRWA and others.
If we agree on learning how to fish instead of taking it, then we will unify our speech and we will draw our path and fulfill the desired change.
Talking about siege, occupation, poverty, and unemployment as obstacles to implementing developmental projects is a mental weakness, decline in determination and innovation to face oppression. Japan could develop itself after it had the biggest military hit in history, and now it becomes one of the strongest countries in economy and development. Also, Malaysia, the Asian tiger, could develop due to the solid plan based on a long-range vision, not on reactions, which made it one of the most important economic countries in the modern time.
Gaza chooses development as well as Mohammad Younis in Bangladesh when he applied the idea of Bank of Poor with only 27 dollars to become a pattern taught as an example of how to overcome poverty and unemployment.
Donors are in need to us as we are in need to them. I almost can assure that if we drew a national policy to guide funding, donors would adopt it as they are not interested in leaving Gaza. They consider it as the air to breathe.
We, as members, institutions, society, and government, need to resolve our choices towards development concept, carefully plan for the coming period, competitively deal with donors, and subjecting them to our patriot agenda.
In conclusion, we need to find institutional coordinating body that is capable of forming a national developmental vision and takes the responsibility of convincing the donating institutions to work for development, not relief. But before, we need to implement a public awareness campaign for Palestinians about the real funding size and what could be done when we get rid of the relief principle moving to realize a true development for the benefit of our society.
Youth must Lead the Change, we are the future Leaders
