Over $45 billions of international donor aid has been spent in the Occupied Palestinian Territory since 1993. This funding is disbursed with limited oversight or control by Palestinians, despite having tremendous influence over their governing structures and daily lives, in a fractured and aid dependent economy under Israeli military rule. Fundamentally, Palestinians need to understand where that funding is coming from, how much is being spent, and what it is being spent on, to exercise control over their own systems of governance, sovereign interests, and general well-being. As such, this study was commissioned to provide an overview of international donor funding in the Occupied Palestinian Territory for the years 2017-2021, focusing on 41 notable donor actors, either countries or multilateral organisations, who shape Palestinian aid and account for a vast majority of the spending. What we discovered was a distinct lack of aid transparency, which was noticeably worse compared to similar past surveys carried out by the researchers on this study. The clear lack of aid transparency and donor unreadiness, inability, or unwillingness to provide the researchers with the necessary data to understand what is being funded in Palestine is concerning. It raises questions about any donor commitment to aid effectiveness and reflects a deeper structural deficiency in the modality of Palestinian aid that needs to be urgently revisited and reinvited.
A report by: Dr. Jeremy Wildeman & Dr. Alaa Tartir
Alaa Tartir, Program Director of Al-Shabaka, Engaged Scholar, Global Citizen 