The majority of the Palestinian Communities still lack a Detailed Outline Plan that caters for their natural growth. Approximate 150,000 Palestinians live in Area C in 542 communities, 281 of which are located entirely or mostly (50% or more of their built up area) in Area C. The draft Operational Coordination Plan details these communities further and clarifies how many are covered by Detailed Outline Plans. As the development pressure on Area C is increasing, it is important to accelerate the planning effort and to address the serious planning backlog, as evidenced by the large amount of demolition orders and/or stop work orders issued.
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Furthermore it is essential that affected village councils are fully aware of the need for planning; the risks involved and, are as such, in a position to engage with the Israeli Civil Administration (ICA) to negotiate the approval of their plans on behalf of their communities. It is important also that they are in position to guide the implementation of the plans.
Until now, most planning efforts were led by IPCC, a local NGO. If the intent is to seriously scale up the planning support to Palestinian Communities in Area C. This means that, apart from IPCC who played a key role in piloting planning in Area C and in supporting Village Councils in their negotiations with the Israeli Civil Administration, other capacity will need to be mobilized. Recently, private sector firms have been contracted to prepare five lots of plans for Area C. Coordinating all ongoing initiatives will require capacity to support Village Councils ensuring proper community participation and ownership, coherence and exchange of lessons learnt, quality control and support in the negotiations with the ICA.
Currently, the engagement with the ICA on the approval of plans is not structured. The situation on the ground and the impact of plans is also not properly documented. Better monitoring is needed with improved information sharing as parties are seeking a common ground in terms of numbers and progress made.
Apart from reducing the risk of displacement, by creating a planning framework that helps to overcome standing demolition or stop work orders, the main reasons to prepare Detailed Outline Plans is to guide concrete improvements in the living conditions of Palestinian Communities in Area C. So far, there is insufficient link between the efforts in planning and investment initiatives.
Therefore the project will build upon existing initiatives and other systems and approaches that have a proven record of success, while also incorporating the challenges and lessons-learned into its actions moving forward. For example, a good source of knowledge includes the International Peace and Cooperation Centre, which has played a leading role in providing planning support to Palestinian Communities in Area C. After many years working in the area, it has now built up a solid base of experience in engaging and supporting Palestinian communities, ensuring their ownership of the planning process, in their interaction with the ICA. Indeed, IPCC is at the forefront of developing relevant planning approaches and it is well-placed to help build the capacity of the Palestinian private sector in relation to planning. Moreover, the close relationship of UN-Habitat and IPCC demonstrates the basis of lessons-learned in the formation of the logic of this intervention.
Further, UN-Habitat's played a strategic role in the development of the Strategic Action Plan since September 2009, jointly reviewing with relevant civil society organisations, OCHA, UNSCO and the Quartet, how planning could be made more effective to prevent displacement and facilitate local development of Palestinian Communities in Area C. These actions enhanced the understanding of the Agency in the issues faced in planning in this area of the world.
Finally, there was an explicit request from the Palestinian Authority to UN-Habitat to mobilize its planning expertise in Area C, to provide a link with the broader work of the UN on the topic, both at the humanitarian, development and political level and to facilitate the advocacy work by the international community.
The project aims at improving the Palestinian management structure and process with involvement of all relevant domestic and international community stakeholders, as well to facilitate technical cooperation with the ICA in the appropriate cases. In this respect the project wants to develop planning standards and guidelines for qualitative community-driven local Outline Planning.
