Nakopa Mission to Visit Projects in the Palestinian Territories

Palestinian territories, 17 to 22 June 2018. In June, members of the Service Agency Communities in One World responsible for projects in the 'German-Palestinian Municipal Partnerships' and ''Partnership Projects for Sustainable Local Development' (Nakopa) programmes paid a joint visit to the Palestinian territories. Since early 2018, 13 German municipalities and their partner municipalities have been actively involved in the Service Agency's partnership programme. Within four of these partnerships, since 2015 a total of six Nakopa projects have been implemented, two of which have already been completed.

During the mission, the delegation visited all six Nakopa projects and engaged in intensive dialogue with the municipalities of the South. The purpose of the journey was to gain an impression of the progress made by the projects, and find out more about the challenges faced by the municipalities when implementing projects. As well as technical issues, the terms of the Nakopa agreements were also discussed.

In the partnership between Bergisch Gladbach and Beit Jala, the project 'Improving local value creation in the Bethlehem region by making it more attractive for tourists, with a special focus on "fair tourism"' is being implemented as a follow-on project to establish a tourist office. One special feature of this project is the way in which various partner municipalities have joined forces. Beit Jala's second partner municipality, Jena, and the partnerships between Bethlehem and Cologne, and Beit Sour and Xanten, are also cooperation partners in the project. This cooperation arrangement enabled the partners to establish and equip a joint tourist office for the Bethlehem region, and harness synergy effects between the municipalities. As a result there are now plans to develop municipal regulations as well as advertising materials and marketing strategies for the Bethlehem region.

In the partnership between Hebron and Mannheim two projects have so far been promoted. With support from the project 'Every drop counts', the district of Al Sindas was connected to the sewerage mains and a new sewer was laid. The project 'Hebron-Mannheim co-working lab (HEMA)', which was launched in 2017, supports young business start-ups in the IT sector. It fosters innovative ideas for projects, and provides young entrepreneurs (women and men alike), many of whom have only just graduated from university, with a workstation free of charge for a period of six months. The project aims to improve employment opportunities in Hebron, and is one particular way of integrating well-trained university graduates into the labour market.

As part of the project 'Installing and feeding in a photovoltaic system at the sewage treatment plant In Nablus, Palestine', which is being promoted in the partnership between Nablus and Nuremberg, the system was completed and officially inaugurated in April 2018. By using funds sparingly it was possible to design the PV plant with a larger capacity than originally envisaged, which means that it can now deliver more power. In the past the high energy consumption of the sewage treatment plant, caused especially by pumping water up to the higher surrounding area, proved to be one of the greatest challenges. It is now possible to generate a total of 10 to 12 per cent of the energy requirement using the PV system, which creates a certain independence from the public grid. The treated waste water is used amongst other things to irrigate the surrounding olive plantations.

In Jifna the project 'Clean Mary's well' is being implemented together with the partner municipality Bad Oldesloe. The well used to be the only source of water in the village of Jifna. Today, Jifna is also connected to the national water network. To this day, however, water supply in the Palestinian territories remains problematic because water is delivered only on a very irregular basis, which means that people continue to use the well. To protect the well against further contamination, the project is supporting waste water and solid waste disposal and well as awareness-raising measures for the local population. To give the village a facelift the well is being protected and cleared of waste.

As well as visiting the projects, during the mission delegates also stepped up their expert dialogue with other actors of the Germany development cooperation system on how to further develop the projects strategically. They also held presentations on Nakpoa as an instrument for supporting partnerships – for instance at the Representative Office of Germany in Ramallah.

To conclude the mission, together with the Local Governance Reform Programme (LGRP) of the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit (GIZ) a cooperation capacity-building workshop was held in Jericho on 21 June 2018, which was attended by the Palestinian partner municipalities. The workshop was designed to network the municipalities and present the Service Agency's support instruments – especially Nakopa. The workshop also gave participants an opportunity to present best practice examples and jointly identify factors that help make the implementation of partnership projects with German partners a success.