PARC Inaugurates the Campaign against Poverty
On the International White Band Day
June,
2005
In commemoration of the fifth anniversary of the
Declaration of the Millennium Development Goals adopted by
the UN Secretary General in September 2000 for the years
2000-2015 that tackle global crucial concerns like poverty,
education, AIDS, health, and women’s participation, PARC
commences its campaign connecting into a larger global
campaign against poverty launched by the civil society under
the slogan “Make Poverty History”.
As a result of globalization, trade liberalization, the
policies of the International Monetary bank (IMF) and the
World Bank (WB), as well as the poor resources and continued
armed conflicts in some parts of the world more and more
people fall under the poverty line and live in absolute
poverty. Though poverty is borders transient meaning
influence many societies and groups even in the developed
countries, it gravely affects the developing countries in
the first place particularly those suffering from military
occupation and armed struggle.
Women
constitute 60% of the world’s 550 million working poor
although women grow about 65% of the world’s food. They form
the majority of the world’s part-time and informal sector
workers. The number of women dying in childbirth is on the
rise reaching 1,300 deaths per 100,000 live births in some
countries.
In Palestine, the number of poor people is on the rise
reaching 50% at the end year of 2004. The percentage of the
Palestinians in absolute poverty i.e. unable to meet food
requirements rose up to 16%. Seven out of ten Palestinian
children live under the poverty line, which is estimated by
2 USD per day. Poverty increased by 30% during the past four
years. These coincided with the decreasing of the foreign
aid during the past two years by 60%.
A set of external and internal factors generate persistent
poverty in the Palestinian Territories among them is the
Israeli military occupation with all its socio-economic
ramification on the Palestinians’ lives and on the natural
resources available for the Palestinian people. In addition
to the unjust trade imbalance between Israel and the
Palestinian Territories most notably the pressures inflicted
upon the Palestinian economy because of the dumping of food,
agricultural and non agricultural produce from Israel. On
the other hand, the Palestinian Authority persistently
marginalizes the vital sectors particularly agriculture,
which safeguards the national food security. The PA
projected budget for the year 2005 that was presented to and
approved by the Palestinian Legislative Council in March
2005 gives an apparent evidence of the persistent trend of
the PA to ignore the concerns and interests of the poor and
marginalized people. The PA allocated almost 50% of the
budget to the security issues, whereas the share of the
economic development did not exceed 2.11%.
Unemployment constitutes a direct root cause for the high
rocketing rate of poverty among the Palestinians. Levels of
unemployment have remained consistently high (31.7%), as
Palestinians have been unable to reach their jobs in Israel
and other parts of the Occupied Palestinian Territories due
to closures, checkpoints, and the construction of the Wall.
Like women worldwide, Palestinian women experience poverty
and its consequences differently from men. Their access to
physical, natural and financial capital is heavily
circumscribed by gender. Only 3 percent of rural women own
property compared with 33 percent of men, while only 9
percent of women obtained the full share of their
inheritance. In addition, 3 percent of women have access to
bank loans compared to 12 percent of men.
Since establishment in 1983, the Palestinian Agricultural
Committees aligned with small male and female farmers. By
passage of time, PARC expanded its services and assistance
to youths and poor categories in the Palestinian rural
areas. PARC successfully implemented projects and
interventions estimated at millions of dollars throughout
its progression aiming at alleviating people’s poverty. The
main and single most important strategic goal for PARC has
been contributing to the sustainable and integrated rural
development, which we believe is a an essential prelude to
combating poverty. PARC adopted a number of strategies to
achieve this goal such as: food security, agricultural
development, developing and rationalizing the use of natural
resources, empowerment of rural women, and others.
PARC achieved solid results such as thousands of km of
agricultural roads; tens thousands of dunums of stony hill
sides have been reclaimed and cultivated with fruit trees
and field crops; thousands of cisterns and grey water
treatment plants and canals have been constructed. With
these activities we aimed to provide additional food and
water resources at the time the Israelis fully control land
and water resources in the Occupied Palestinian
Territories.
Furthermore, PARC has implemented a number of interventions
to improve the skills of Palestinian farmers (men and women)
in cattle and poultry breeding as well bee keeping. We have
achieved significant results in protecting animal wealth and
biodiversity throughout Palestine.
One of the most important interventions that PARC managed to
address is marketing of agricultural produce. Olive oil
production for example, received a lot of PARC’s efforts and
attention to enable Palestinian farmers who depend on this
crop for their living to market their produce. So far, PARC
exported tons of olive oil and other agricultural produce in
an attempt to assist Palestinian farmers to survive high
cost living, closures and unemployment. This process has
been possible because of the networking and cooperation
relations between PARC and Fair Trade organizations in
Europe, Asia and the USA.
PARC deemed important to invest in socio-economic
initiatives. We perceived this investment as one of the most
effective means for combating poverty and promoting
sustainable development in general. Another useful and
efficient intervention has been increasing rural people
particularly women's access to and control over resources,
services, markets and decision-making processes.
Upon this track record of outstanding achievements, PARC has
become eligible to take the lead in campaigning against
poverty by motivating people and organizations to
participate in combating poverty and pressuring the
Palestinian Authority and the funding agencies to give
proper attention to the poors’ basic needs.
PARC’s contribution to poverty alleviation constitutes a
small part of the indispensable contributions of other
Palestinian and international organizations which have
invested extremely large funds in poverty mitigation actions
and programs. However, there is still a big need for
further intervention.
