Ramallah, 17/08/2009 - The Ministry of Local Government is in the process of restructuring the local government system in Palestine. There is a need to restructure the current local government organization and engage in a comprehensive municipal restructuring programme aimed to reduce the number of LGUs and integrate them into municipalities that can perform core functions and provide basic services.
The “Amalgamation” topic has been stressed in most documents and reports associated to local government policy, strategy and planning since 2004. Due to its importance, the MoLG has established an Amalgamation Task Force.
A delegation consisting of representatives of the Amalgamation Task Force participated in a Study Visit to the Netherlands 25-30 May 2009. The main aim was to learn from their (Netherlands) policies and practices in the field of municipal amalgamation and reform. This, with a view to developing an international perspective on municipal amalgamation and to incorporate useful elements in the Palestinian policy and strategy where appropriate in this area of local government development. The delegation consisted of MoLG Deputy Minister-Mazen Ghenim; Adnan Jaffal, Director General, Public Administration for Legal Affairs; Bassam Hadayda, Director General of Election Dept.; Farouq Ghaneim, JSCPD Al Kafriyat Chairman and Majeda Nabhan, Programme Director of LICP.
The programme was coordinated by the BTC-LICP office (Mrs Majeda Nabhan, LICP Programme Director and Iyad Innab, LICP Capacity Building Coordinator-Consultant); in the Netherlands, the various arrangements for the programme were facilitated by Peter Slits, senior consultant in local governance capacity building.
The Ministry of Interior and Kingdom Relations in the Netherlands hosted the delegation. Other institutions involved in the programme included
- General Delegation of Palestine in The Hague
- Ministry of Foreign Affairs/Development Co-operation
- Province of South Holland
- Association of Netherlands Municipalities (VNG)
- VNG International Cooperation Agency
- Municipality of Moordrecht c.a. (Nieuwerkerk a/d Yssel, Moerkapelle/ Zevenhuizen) in the Province of South Holland, and
- Municipality of Maasbree c.a. (Kassel, Meijel and Helden) in the Province of Limburg.
A full report detailing the aim and programme of the visit, can be downloaded here. In addition to the report, some pictures of the study trip can be found below.
The BTC/LICP and the Ministry of Local Government would like to thank everyone involved in making the study visit successful.
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