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Fourth German-Palestinian Municipal Partnership Conference

"Improve the often difficult living conditions in small ways!"

How does effective communication in a partnership work? How can we pursue sustainable development goals? What role does civil society play? And last but not least, how can municipal partnerships contribute to improving the living conditions of the Palestinian population? At the invitation of the Service Agency and the City of Brühl, more than 80 representatives from 36 German and Palestinian municipalities addressed these and other questions.

In the centre of the picture there is a female conference participant who explains or tells something to two men, who can only be seen from behind, with both hands. She is looking at the person on the left side of the picture. — Discussions on the sidelines of the program between Dr. Tagrid Yousef from Krefeld and the delegation from Bani Zeid Al Sharqiya. Photo: Martin Magunia

Brühl, 24 to 27 September 2019. Within the framework of the SKEW project "German-Palestinian municipal partnerships", which has officially been running since 2015, the fourth partnership conference took place. The number of partnerships and conference participants is constantly increasing: while there were only nine established partnerships at the conference in Jericho 2017, this year already 17 partnerships are participating in the initiative. In addition to representatives of German and Palestinian municipalities, participants from the Palestinian Association of Local Authorities APLA and the German Association of Cities and Towns, Deutscher Städtetag, were also welcomed.

The conference was organized in cooperation with the German Association for International Cooperation (GIZ) and together with the city administration of Brühl in the heart of the city between the World Cultural Heritage Site Augustusburg Castle and the Max Ernst Museum. In the midst of this prestigious location the opening address was given by Dr. Khouloud Daibes, Ambassador of the Palestinian Mission in Germany, Dieter Freytag, Mayor of Brühl, Nicole Hofmann from the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), Dr. Jens Kreuter, Managing Director of Engagement Global, and Musa Hadid, President of the Palestinian Association of Local Authorities APLA.

Strengthening Palestinian Communities at the Local Level

The aim of the project "German-Palestinian municipal partnerships" is to contribute to economic and social development, to improve the living conditions of the Palestinian population and to strengthen Palestinian municipalities at the local level. This is to be achieved through the exchange of experience and knowledge between German and Palestinian municipalities, through information, networking, capacity building and consultation services for target groups and by promoting partnership projects.

The photo shows the moderator of the conference with six participants from municipal associations and municipalities at the panel discussion on the benefits of municipal associations. — Participants in the panel discussion on the benefits of municipal associations. Photo: Martin Magunia

This year's partnership conference once again provided the ideal framework for consolidating and expanding these partnership relations. In Brühl, too, the focus was on municipal exchange at the professional level – not on politics. Panel discussions, information and consultation rooms as well as working groups offered a variety of platforms for this purpose. Thanks to the various formats and decentralized working locations, which allowed for a lively mix of the partner municipalities, common strengths and weaknesses were identified and synergies created. In bilateral work phases, these could be translated into practical terms, concrete project ideas could be further elaborated and joint projects could be promoted.

Putting Partnership Work on a Solid Foundation

All of this – and here too there was consensus among the participants – can only be crowned with success if it is possible to take along not only the administration but also politics and civil society, thus placing the entire partnership work on a solid foundation.

In addition, the idea of using the advantages of trilateral cooperation and generally interconnecting the existing partnerships was taken up several times. However, the scope of these partnerships has also become clear: from small and early partnerships such as between Al-Ubeidiya and Lauenburg, to large and established ones such as Bethlehem and Cologne.

In order to combine their interests, the Palestinian municipalities can rely on an important player: the Palestinian Association of Municipalities APLA, which presented its new strategic plan at the conference. The role of local authority associations in supporting partnership work in general was also the subject of a high-level panel discussion.

The representative from the Palestinian municipality of Qabatiya shows the representative from the district of Stendal the location of Qabatiya on a poster. — Frank Hoche and Konstanze Klein from the Stendal district in conversation with Mohammad Haj Awad, council member of the partner municipality Qabatiya. Photo: Martin Magunia

The localization of Agenda 2030 and the implementation of the 17 sustainability goals at the local level is the common concern of the German and Palestinian partners. Concrete examples made clear how this looks like in practice. Bergisch Gladbach, for example, is supporting its partner municipality Beit Jala in the conversion to climate-friendly city lighting – a showcase project in which participants from other Palestinian partner cities were also interested. Representatives from Hebron and Mannheim may also have inspired other partnership projects; among other things, they presented their support for young start-ups in Hebron in the field of information technology.

All participants stressed the importance of regular personal meetings for project work, which could not be replaced by anything else, and expressed their appreciation of the opportunities created by the conference for cross-cutting learning from older partnerships and other municipalities beyond the bilateral partnership. There will be a reunion next year at the national networking meetings and the fifth partnership conference in Palestine planned for 2021.

The head of the Department Partnerships Countries and Regions of the Service Agency Kurt-Michael Baudach summed up the optimistic conclusion of the participants: "Partnership work on a small scale improves the often difficult living conditions of people in the Palestinian partner municipalities.”

Impressions of the Partnership Conference

The photo shows the participants of the 4th German-Palestinian Partnership Conference on and in front of the steps of a staircase that leads to the right and left to a raised level in front of the Brühl Castle. In the background you can see the window front and the yellow baroque façade of Augustusburg Palace.

The photo was taken at the opening event of the 4th German-Palestinian Communal Partnership Conference and shows in the foreground on the right a man in a suit who is using his hands to tell his audience something. Two men in suits and two women with headscarves are facing him and are listening to him with great interest.

On the opening evening, the representative from the Palestinian municipality of Qabatiya will show the representative and the representative from the district of Stendal the location of Qabatiya on a poster showing the map of Germany and Palestine and in which the location of the partner municipalities involved in the project is marked.

The photo shows the Brühl singer Maria Jonas and the Iraqi musician Bassem Hawar on stage on the opening evening. She is on the right side of the picture, he is sitting on the left side, framed by the German and Palestinian flag. In his left hand and on his left knee he holds his musical instrument, a knee-fiddle. In his right hand he holds the bow.

The photo shows two musicians on stage. The musician on the right in the picture holds a big drum. The musician on the left plays an oriental plucked instrument. In the background, a beamer has been projected onto the wall:

The photo shows the moderator of the conference with six representatives of municipal associations and municipalities at the panel discussion on the benefits of municipal associations. In the background, the names and functions of the participants in the panel discussion are projected onto the wall with a beamer.

The photo shows Dr. Albrecht Schröter, honorary ambassador for municipal development policy and former mayor of Jena, with the microphone in his hand in front of the conference chairs. In the lower right corner two Palestinian participants in suits with headphones are sitting, in the background you can see Bakir AlKhateeb, who is part of the Palestinian part of the organising team of the conference. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

The photo shows the two conference moderators during an interactive exchange with a total of four representatives of the Nuremberg-Nablus and Lauenburg-Al Ubeidiye partnerships on the subject of project development. In the background there is a photo showing the mayor of Lauenburg shaking hands with a schoolchild as a greeting during his first visit to Al-Ubeidiye. In the foreground are the backs of the heads of the conference participants. Translated with www.DeepL.com/Translator (free version)

Dr. Peter Pluschke from the Environmental Department of the City of Nuremberg during his lecture on Nuremberg's waste management.

The picture shows three gentlemen sitting at a table in an intensive exchange, on the left side of the table is the mayor of Jericho and an employee of the city council of Jericho, on the right side of the table the representative from Speyer. In the background you can see another working group sitting at a table.

The picture shows the representative of the city of Bonn on the right and the representative of the city of Ramallah on the left. They are sitting at the corner of a larger white table. The representative from Bonn has a pen in his hand. Both look at each other. In the background of both of them there is a window through which you can see parts of the castle of Brühl.

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