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OPT: GZ-Southern West Bank solid waste management (SWMP)

Attachments

  1. Country and Sector Background

A. Background

The PA's development strategy is clearly defined in the Palestinian Reform and Development Plan (PRDP) for 2008-2010 presented at the Paris donor conference on December 17, 2007, at which time donors pledged about $7.7 billion. The PRDP represents both a Palestinian-owned plan for assigning resources to reform and other priorities, and a tripartite action plan for rehabilitating the Palestinian economy. The Plan seeks to stabilize the PA's fiscal situation by containing recurrent spending and, as the economy improves, shifting resources towards development spending. A number of projects embedded in the PRDP have also been identified covering a wide range of sectors such as tourism, education, housing, industrial estates, agriculture, water and sanitation (including solid waste management) (1). According to the International Monetary Fund, in 2008, the PA received almost US$1.8 billion in budget support with a further US$0.25 billion in externally financed capital expenditures making total external support almost 30 percent of GDP.

Unsanitary and uncontrolled solid wastes disposal has become a serious public health and environmental hazard of great concern to the Palestinian people in the West Bank and Gaza. It is a threat to public health as a result of random and unsanitary dumping (the number of dumpsites is estimated to range from 189 to 419) and burning causing air pollution, potential infiltration of polluted leachate into the water supply aquifers, pollution of valuable agricultural land and natural landscape, and creating a habitat for breeding disease-transmitting vectors. The vast majority of solid waste produced by the Palestinian population in the West Bank, except in the northern region, is disposed of at unregulated dump sites. The total populations of the West Bank estimated at about 2.27 million generate a solid waste load of about 690,000 tons per year (t/yr). The waste load is primarily of domestic and commercial origin. In the project area, the total municipal waste load is estimated to increase from 238,000 t/yr in 2007 to about 316,600 t/yr by 2020 and 370,500 t/yr by 2030. Currently, the average waste collection rate is estimated at 85%, and about 60-70% of the waste consists of organic matter.

B. Sector Issues

The overall situation of solid waste management (SWM) in the proposed project area, namely the southern West Bank covering Bethlehem and Hebron governorates, is below acceptable standards due to weakened local governments as a result of the deteriorating political and economic conditions affecting municipal finances, constrained SWM institutional framework, and inadequate infrastructure for proper disposal of solid waste. The main sector issues can be summarized as: a) Deteriorating environmental health quality due to the random disposal of solid wastes containing hazardous hospital and industrial wastes causing major threat to water, land, and humans; b) Declining Local Governments revenues which reached nearly 20% drop in revenues per capita. This has contributed to the inability of many households to pay for electricity and water services, a major LG's sources of revenue used to also crosssubsidize SWM services; c) Deteriorating SWM service quality due to the incomplete service coverage, absence of collection schedule, collection strikes and uncontrolled dumpsites. This has resulted in signification popular dissatisfaction with the quality of related municipal service; d) Scale-efficiency for Solid Waste Collection and Disposal caused by high costs related to planning, capital investments, operating, maintenance and monitoring. Therefore, the decision to establish joint services councils and a high Joint Service Council (JSC) to enable cost sharing of solid waste collection and disposal in Bethlehem and Hebron governorates in June 2006, and May and July 2007 respectively, represent good practice and the first step in the southern West Bank to receive the estimated 600 tons per day of waste per day. Both current semi controlled dumpsites, receiving 60% of the waste while 40% are either being burned at local dumpsites or randomly dumped on valuable agricultural land or along road sides; and f) Hazardous waste disposal. There is very limited information on the sources, quantities and composition of hazardous wastes generated and disposal practices in the project area. This issue is being addressed in part with donor technical assistance and pilots working jointly with the PA. By end of 2009, an updated SWM strategy is expected to give direction for future intervention.

C. Palestinian Authority (PA) Strategy and Commitment

Over the past years, the PA has identified the SWM as one of its key development priorities. This has been exemplified in the last two development plans: a) the Palestinian Medium-Term Development Plan (2006-2008) three main pillars clearly delineated such priority as follows: (i) strengthening the municipal service delivery capacity by enhancing the management and financial capabilities of local governments; (ii) encouraging municipalities to establish joint services councils as regional institutions for the delivery of SWM services to realize economies of scale; and (iii) establishing three regional sanitary landfill sites to effectively service the entire West Bank; and b) the Palestinian Reform and Development Plan (2008 - 2010), key priorities which include SWM in two of the four themes: (i) "Safety and security - Improved regulation of utilities, .... , and better solid, liquid and hazardous waste management can have a material impact on public safety...."; and (ii) "Enhanced quality of life - Improving the regulation and management of public and private sector utilities, .... , better waste management, .. can make a major contribution to improving the daily lives of citizens".

National and local commitments have been exemplified through a number of measures, including: a) The PA's identification of SWM as key priority which set forth to secure the necessary resources towards implementing proper management measures; b) MOLG's decision of July 12, 2007, to establish the JSC for SWM in Hebron and Bethlehem (JSC-H&B) for SWM in Southern West Bank; and c) The local level commitment confirmed in March 2007 through the signing of concerned municipalities of a MOU towards joint efforts in: i) strengthening of the administrative municipal structures, ii) provision of new environmentally sound solid waste transfer stations and a sanitary landfill facility, iii) closing of unsanitary dump sites following environmentally and socially sound approaches, iv) improving collection services at the municipal level, and v) pooling of revenues to benefit from economies of scale through the provision of joint services.