Publication
Omar Shaban Ismail · Sama News Agency · 2011
Omar Shaban examines the tension between Hamas's government in Gaza and international organisations that, since 2006–2007, adopted the Western policy of no contact with it, a tension that escalated after Gaza's Interior Ministry required them to register and open their offices to audit. He sets out several perspectives: the organisations range from genuinely humanitarian to strictly donor-driven; their numbers swelled after the blockade until they “work on the poor, not for the poor”; their focus on emergency relief breeds dependency; any government is entitled to oversight; there are complaints of corruption in hiring and choice of partners; and Palestinian society benefits from no more than 20% of the funding. He concludes that the Gaza government must treat all organisations equally and heed people's needs, the organisations must avoid politicisation and raise transparency, and civil society should create popular monitoring bodies.
Omar Shaban, August 2011: international organisations in Gaza must avoid politicisation and raise transparency; Gaza’s government must treat them equally.
Following Hamas’s victory in the legislative elections held in January 2006, its formation of the government in March of the same year, and its exclusive rule over the Gaza Strip in June 2007, the relationship of the international organizations working in the Strip with Palestinian society and the Hamas government in Gaza entered a new phase. This was because these institutions adopted the same position taken by most Western countries, namely, not dealing with Hamas, its government, or any institutions related to it, whether directly or indirectly.
Since that time, the relationship with the international institutions operating there has witnessed intense tension and sharp tug-of-war, in an attempt by both sides in the relationship to measure the strength of the other side, as each side has sought to use the points of strength it possesses. The government in Gaza relies on the fact that it is the ruler in the Gaza Strip and the guardian of people’s interests, which requires everyone working under its control to coordinate with it and comply with its laws. The other side, namely the international institutions, bases its position on Palestinian society’s need for its services, especially after the siege and the war on the Gaza Strip.
Tension in the relationship between the two sides has escalated in the recent period after the Department of Associations in the Ministry of Interior in Gaza requested that these institutions register themselves with the Department of Associations and open their offices to auditing by auditors affiliated with the Ministry of Interior in Gaza. The reaction of the international institutions to these demands has ranged between outright rejection and the search for compromise solutions, prompting some of them to suspend their work. Given the importance of the issue, several proposals have been circulated to defuse the crisis, for example, assigning licensed auditing firms recognized internationally and locally as a third party. It may be useful here to recall some positions on this issue, from multiple perspectives, with the aim of enriching the discussion around it—
· International institutions are not all of one type. There are international institutions that work in the humanitarian field without any political reservations, thereby expressing genuine solidarity with peoples who are in need of their services, while others fully adhere to the policy of the donor, even if they themselves are not convinced by it.
Therefore, Palestinian society views with great appreciation many international institutions that have contributed prominently to alleviating its suffering and to defending its cause locally and internationally.
· It may be understandable that Western governments rushed to halt their funding to the government formed by Hamas under the pretext of political conditions, taking into account that international governmental funding always serves political purposes. But it is not understandable that many international institutions hastened to adopt the same official international governmental position, given that they work in the field of relief and development.
· The number of international institutions working in the Gaza Strip swelled unprecedentedly after the siege and the war, as some of them sought to benefit from the humanitarian crisis caused by the siege and the war on the Gaza Strip, especially institutions working in the field of relief, not out of a desire to serve the poor, but in order to fund their employees and offices around the world. The Gaza Strip has become a source of jobs with fantastic salaries and of financing the industry of consultancy and international relief, in what can be described as: “They work through the poor, not for the poor.” The Palestinian division constituted a golden opportunity for many international institutions that found relief from official oversight amid weak popular oversight, and the crisis in the Strip gave them a golden opportunity to inflate their staffs.
· The overcrowding of numerous international institutions working in the Gaza Strip, most of which lack a strategic vision and focus the bulk of their work on distributing emergency aid of temporary usefulness, has created a pathological state of dependency and reliance, and has spread an atmosphere of lethargy and begging in a way that destroys the sources of strength in Palestinian society and limits self-reliance and self-solidarity.
· Many believe that it is the duty of any government, regardless of one’s position toward it, to monitor the work of international institutions operating in the territory it controls, based on the premise that there is no state in the world that allows any international or national institution to work on its territory without being registered and without submitting periodic reports to it. International institutions working in Somalia, Iraq, Thailand, Britain, and Sweden coordinate with the government regardless of the political program of the ruling party.
· The government in Gaza receives many complaints from citizens indicating unprecedented levels of corruption practiced by some international institutions, whether in hiring, selecting partners, or selecting beneficiaries. Therefore, the government in Gaza feels that it is its duty to regulate the work of the international and civil society organizations operating in the Gaza Strip and to combat manifestations of financial, moral, and political corruption.
· The government in Gaza finds no logical reason, other than a political one, for the refusal of international institutions to register themselves and open their doors to auditing, especially if they are confident in the soundness of their programs and the transparency of their work.
· Many in Palestinian society feel intense anger at the behavior of many international institutions and their employees, who deal with the targeted groups with extreme condescension and arrogance, and practice a clear humiliation of the dignity of the poor and a violation of their privacy through exhausting questionnaires that inquire into the details of their private lives and by forcing them to wait for long hours and in conditions that are in no way humane.
This is wholly inconsistent with the principles and foundations of ethical humanitarian work.
· Studies have proven that most international funding goes to the benefit of the international institutions themselves in the form of salaries, huge bonuses, and financing luxury expenses such as lavish cars, renting high-cost apartments, and dinner tables in upscale hotels, such that nothing remains for Palestinian society except crumbs.
Palestinian society benefits from no more than 20% of the volume of allocated funding, while the remaining percentage goes to the international institutions themselves.
Two days ago, the Christian Science Monitor published, in the context of discussing the Egyptian government’s conducting of an investigation into Egyptian political parties and civil society organizations receiving American funds, that 85% of democracy assistance to Egypt went to American institutions, meaning that what was spent in Egypt did not exceed 15%.
· The government in Gaza believes that auditing the programs of international institutions will bring it many benefits, among them preventing manipulation by some partner NGOs, as there is abundant evidence of rampant corruption in some NGOs that practice lying and falsification toward international institutions and submit to them fictitious reports about programs that were not implemented as required.
· Citizens expect the government in Gaza, regardless of their position toward it, to do what is required of it as the ruler, such as paving roads, building schools, preserving security, and other sovereign services that any government must perform, whether it is David Cameron’s government in Britain or the Islamic youth government in Somalia. Since international institutions use these diverse services and the infrastructure, they ought in fact to contribute to improving and developing them.
· Many in the Gaza Strip believe that these measures implemented by the government in Gaza are applied selectively, such that they do not include within their scope the Arab and Islamic international institutions working in the Gaza Strip, nor even those local institutions that have some kind of relationship with the government in Gaza.
In the end, the government in Gaza must take into account the need of many of our people in the Gaza Strip for the services of these institutions, and work to provide a suitable environment for them and equality in its dealings with all institutions operating in the Gaza Strip. On the other hand, international institutions, if they are sincere in their claim that they are present in the Gaza Strip to serve the poor and the needy, must distance themselves from politicization and raise the levels of transparency in implementing their programs. Here comes the role of civil society organizations linked to people’s interests, not those swimming in the honey of international funding, in creating popular bodies to monitor the work of international institutions and follow up on the extent of their commitment to the principles of transparency, integrity, and the law.
I conclude with an innocent question to the international institutions: when will international institutions lift the ban on dealing with the government in Gaza?! And what would the position of international institutions be if the Quartet, by some miracle, decided to deal with the government in Gaza tomorrow? ... Would international institutions then recognize it as well? At that point, we would be entitled to say that international institutions are also a member of the International Quartet.
Topic: Gaza Governance — international organisations · Hamas government · aid politicisation · transparency — Text © Sama News Agency — archived here with attribution to the source. — Original source