Requested by the Palestinian Authority (PA), this assessment is the fourth in the World Bank’s Movement and Access study series. The goal of the assessment is to develop a balanced analysis and create awareness of the factors restricting Palestinian water sector development as well as of the economic, social, and environmental impacts of these restrictions. The assessment addresses factors such as sector governance, and movement and access (M&A) restrictions beyond the control of the Palestinian Authority, as well as internal contributing factors, notably governance and capacity weaknesses of Palestinian institutions.

The Bank has been providing technical assistance to PWA since 2006 aimed at building capacity to improve its management of water resources. This largely took the form of workshops and learning events for Palestinian stakeholders to share experiences and learn about good integrated water resources management (IWRM) practices. In 2008, with the new leadership in PWA, a more specific request was received to build capacity in this organization.

A preliminary institutional analysis indicated that, while PWA had internal challenges of improving its performance in its role of resource manager and regulator of service provision, an undocumented aspect was the “exogenous” constraints it faced because of the unique nature of Palestinian access to shared water resources with Israel. Constraints to improved performance were therefore at three levels as shown below: