Good Governance Monitoring Report – Issue no. 1

2. Introduction

The Good Governance Initiative (GGI) is a coalition of civil society organizations, academics, and community activists seeking to promote good governance in Palestine through providing citizens with regular, impartial assessments of public sector performance. The GGI focuses on assessing the quality and cost-effectiveness of public services and public sector management and identifying policy recommendations for improvement. The GGI also aims to stimulate wider debate about national and sectoral priorities and progress towards achieving a national reform and development agenda. (See Annex A for more details of the concepts underpinning the work of the GGI.)

This first monitoring report of the GGI focuses on assessing government performance in certain key areas during the period from 1^st April 2006 to 30^th September 2006. The assessment is based on a set indicators developed by the GGI to measure the overall performance of the Executive and Legislative branches of government taking into account fundamental principles of transparency, integrity, accountability, effectiveness, efficiency and the rule of law. These indicators, which are summarized in the Annex B, focus on policy and decision-making mechanisms, human and financial resources management in the civil service, and education and health service delivery.

The report relies to a large extent on information gathered from official sources and media reports.  Unfortunately there were significant limitations on the data-gathering process due in part to the unwillingness of some officials to provide information and, in recent months, as a result of the public sector strike. Therefore, the report is necessarily limited to assessing government performance in those areas where information was accessible.  

The report also features the results of an opinion poll conducted by the Jerusalem Media and Communications Center (JMCC) in late September 2006 to assess citizens’ perceptions of government performance. Also included is a summary of report prepared by the Birzeit University Centre for Continuing Education on Palestinian perceptions of the ongoing public sector strike and its impact.  Finally, the report incorporates articles providing analysis and recommendations in relation to key aspects of Palestinian governance reform:  “Towards Better Governance in Palestine through Public Administration and Civil Service Reform”; “Towards an Improved Budget Process”; and “The Cost of the Civil Service: Problems and Policy Recommendations”.

The publication of this report and the period it covers coincide with an unprecedented political, economic and social crisis in the occupied Palestinian territories.  Nine ministers and more than forty PLC members have arrested by the Israeli security services, factional tensions between HAMAS and FATEH are escalating, Israeli military action continues in Gaza, extensive closures in the West Bank persist and PNA revenues have collapsed...  This crisis has severely undermined the new government’s ability to manage the public sector and deliver public services and any assessment of the government’s performance must be viewed in this context. Accordingly, the realities on the ground have resulted in a shift in the good governance discourse from considerations of what the government is doing to improve public sector performance towards how international responses to the election result may be undermining public institutions. However, it remains important to keep an eye on trends and developments in governance, some of which are not organically related to current crisis.

Published by Good Governance Initiative - 2006

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