Ramallah, December 2010: Water cuts into all avenues of life from personal hygiene and public health to maintaining sources of livelihood as agriculture, livestock, and industry. Moreover, water is critical in building and securing any nation. With these factors in mind JLAC sought to peruse a public interest effort to study and reform a set water utility practices which serve to (in particular) disenfranchise poor and marginalized communities in the oPt.

In conducting the questionnaire, comparative field study, legal study, and sector roundtables, JLAC was able to confirm speculated gaps of water utility pricing and to identify the complex factors contributing to this reality (i.e. variances in types of water sources, governing bodies’ failure to fulfil their role of determining and unifying utility tariffs and the legislative council’s failure to monitor regulatory bodies, absence of a national plan addressing matter, etc.).  Moreover, the Center (through a Tiri funded project entitled: Protecting the Rights of the Poor/ Marginalized in Accessing Basic Services) served to bring sector players together (for the first time in reported programmatic history) to discuss initial study findings and their roles in existing water utility variances.

In addition to shortcomings attributed to the Palestinian end, the study also addressed the limitations posed by the Israeli government’s  unilateral control of water resources and the limited and out-dated water shares allotted to Palestinians as per the Oslo Accords (among the study’s recommendations is that Palestinian water shares be reviewed and amended). 

Indeed, there is a need to continue the efforts initiated through this project, e.g. more sector dialogues, the development of a collective national plan, efforts towards legal reform (national level), learning from the experiences of other states,  as well as diplomatic interventions as to attain more resources (via Palestinian-Israeli negotiations), etc.

A second phase to this project may involve; litigation, lobbying, a national consumer awareness campaign, etc.

To read the full study in Arabic, please follow the below link;