المركز الفلسطيني PCDCR ينفذ جلستي نقاش ضمن مشروع ” تنمية المجتمعات المحلية المهمشة GVCD”

The Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution (PCDCR) held two discussion sessions on Tuesday and Wednesday, 18 and 19 December, within the project "Marginalised Local Communities Development" GVCD“ in partnership with the Municipal Development and Lending Fund (MDLF) and funded by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), at the Centre's office in Khan Younis. The sessions were attended by Mr. Saeed Almagadma, Director General of the Palestinian Center for Democracy and Conflict Resolution, Ms. Amal Al-Sabaawi and Eng. Ahmed Dardouna representing the Fund, the project managers of the seven municipalities targeted by the project (Al-Bureij, Al-Qarara, New Abasan, Khuza'a, Al-Shoka, Al-Nasr and Rafah), and 40 citizens from the local community representing the marginalised communities nominated for the project's interventions. The discussion in the first meeting was facilitated by Mr. Abdel Moneim Al-Tahrawi, the Centre's projects manager, and in the second meeting by Eng. Iyad Abu Hjair, director of the Centre's Gaza branch.

These meetings come at the start of the Marginalised Local Communities Development Project, under the project's first main task: the study to select marginalised areas in the Gaza Strip. Its methodology for collecting information relied primarily on residents' participation in identifying their needs and priorities in the marginalised communities where they live, in addition to meetings with specialists in the municipality and with community figures. The meetings were held to present the results of the preliminary study on levels of vulnerability across several themes: infrastructure services, education, health, public services (availability of a park, library, cultural centre, lighting, ease of transport), in addition to a second main theme, community participation, and finally the socio-economic situation. The second aim of the meetings was to produce a set of criteria for selecting the marginalised communities to be targeted by the project's interventions, by giving residents the opportunity to discuss and express their views freely in the presence of the municipalities, in an atmosphere that was notably positive.

Among the most important outputs of the two meetings was setting general criteria for selecting the most vulnerable communities to be targeted by the project's interventions, the most important of which are:

1) The population density of the marginalised community.

2) The level of community participation of residents in marginalised communities, which reflects their interest in and efforts to improve their living conditions through more accountable municipal services.

3) Residents' urgent needs and highest priorities in certain infrastructure sectors such as sewage, drinking water, waste removal and eliminating health hazards, road paving and limiting dangerous floods and flooding.

4) The financial cost of infrastructure projects, which must match the project's financial resources.

5) Technical engineering considerations for implementing infrastructure projects.

6) Financial contributions from residents in marginalised communities and support to municipalities in some interventions that could make daily life easier.

7) The presence of two or more adjacent marginalised communities, where the project's interventions help solve problems common to those communities.

Project coordinator Eng. Iman Abu Saeed noted that the activity underlines the project's philosophy, which is based on community participation at every stage of implementation.

The Gaza Marginalised Local Communities Development (GVCD) project is designed to empower the most vulnerable communities, which suffer a shortage of basic services in the target areas. In particular, it aims to improve infrastructure services and make them more accountable, and to raise community participation to the level of the decisions taken by municipalities on improving living conditions in those communities.