Joint Programming: Its Added Value in Complex Situations

Palestine

Palestine is plagued by conflict and instability. Families struggle with ever-changing realities and personal security feels uncontrollable. It can be difficult in such regions to gain traction on global issues that require a longer term perspective, like climate change. But first experiences in Joint Programming suggest this might alter, according to Johan Schaar, Sweden’s Head of Development Cooperation in Jerusalem.

Palestine is on the front line of climate change with water shortages, desertification and agricultural losses a looming reality. With the country mired in conflict and insecurity, looking beyond the immediate to tackle long-term threats is a challenge.

“These kind of issues, that have a long time-frame such as climate change and environmental impact and so on, they tend not to be high on the agenda,” said Mr Schaar,  “People simply don’t have the energy or the ability to pay attention to that.”

By increasing cooperation between European Union partners and taking a Joint Programming approach to drafting a development strategy Mr Schaar is optimistic that climate change and other long time-frame issues, like sustainably managing natural resources, will take a more prominent role.

“We are still in the early stages,” said Mr Schaar, “but it could be that this challenging environment is actually more conducive to Joint Programming than much more stable environments where the need to work together is not as obvious.”

The EU Delegation is working with a donor team of 22 EU Member States active as donors in Palestine, plus Norway and Switzerland. Together these 25 European development partners distribute annually over €1billion in aid to Palestine, a highly politicized and fragmented nation in the Middle East where insecurity and unpredictability is an ever-present feature of life.

Johan Schaar

Since 2013, these donors have participated in a Joint Programming process to reduce European development programming gaps and overlaps through a clear distribution of responsibilities. After more than a year of consultation the European development partners concluded that to be more effective in Palestine, they will need to focus their efforts.

So the original plan of sixteen priorities has been boiled down to five pillars and aligned to the new Palestinian Authority’s development plan. In addition to this there are a series of ‘cross-cutting’ issues, that include climate change, human rights, gender, civil society and conflict sensitivity.

Joint programming has essentially created a manageable means to mainstream European values into what is ostensibly a billion euros a year of programming. Simply by participating in the Five JP Pillar structure, mainstreaming European values graduates from a ‘tick-box’ exercise to an actionable activity that can be measured, implemented and can generate its own monitoring reports.

European donors are now working on a Joint Strategy document and there is hope that results will be as encouraging as the planning process has been to date. 

“This process has allowed us to really frame the identified issues in a way that is relevant here,” said Mr Schaar. “I am quite optimistic by this process.”

The real test for the value of Joint Programming is yet to come. Identifying donor programming gaps and overlaps is one thing, but responding flexibly and pragmatically to reduce them is quite another," said Mr Schaar.

“When we have the strategy, when it’s ready,” said Mr Schaar, “we need to be able to see that Joint Programming has had an impact in how we work. We need to see that it has made a difference. That it wasn’t just a process that was useful for its own sake.”

This article is part of the JP Newsletter no.1 - see table of contents