Infrastructure policy making at the local government of the West Bank, Palestine: Case study of the water sector / Feras Ali Hasan Qawasmeh

Feras Ali Hasan , Qawasmeh (2022) Infrastructure policy making at the local government of the West Bank, Palestine: Case study of the water sector / Feras Ali Hasan Qawasmeh. PhD thesis, Universiti Malaya.

	PDF (The Candidate's Agreement) Restricted to Repository staff only Download (236Kb)
	PDF (Thesis PhD) Download (3018Kb)

Abstract

Local governments interact with inhabitants more dynamically than the central government to respond to their problems and needs, which usually are related to basic infrastructure services. In the West Bank context, there are various issues of the infrastructure services. These issues at different degrees of challenges are generally related to limited access of services, poor quality, low satisfaction level, limited Palestinian control over resources and others. However, previous literature has focused more on identifying these issues at the operational level. Substantially, few studies are found to look at the service delivery process from the policy perspective. The main goal of this study is to investigate the infrastructure policy making at the local government of West Bank, considering the water service/sector as a case study. This main goal is then supported by three research objectives. The first objective is to analyse the effects of politico-administrative and structure/institutional framework on the water policy making process, while the second objective is to investigate the challenges/issues in water policy making process. Further, the last objective is to identify the impact of the current policy formulation process of water service on the services delivery. A qualitative research approach was adopted to collect data to achieve the objectives of the study. The research utilises mainly primary data, supported by secondary data when needed. The interview was employed to gather the primary data, while scholarly works, government documents, and archival records are used to gather the secondary data. The results show that the water sector mainly suffers from legislative, institutional and operational problems. Subsequently, solutions were drafted to overcome them. However, the main issue of water service policy making is the gap between the water service formulation process and implementation process, which makes the current water service delivery process inconsistent with the water policies. The main reason behind this gap is found to be the non-issuance of related regulative policies by the Palestinian Cabinet of Ministries. However, the results also show that there are five interrelated factors which led to create this gap. These factors are the Israeli Occupation, foreign funds, legal/institutional framework including overlapping powers, preceding laws, deactivation of the Palestinian Parliament and local government structure, administrative issues including weak leadership integration, internal politics and financial spending pattern of service providers, and lastly public opinion. Theoretically, the Advocacy Coalition Framework (ACF) was found to be appropriate in explaining the water formulation process with some modifications made to suit the Palestinian governance context. Nevertheless, it neither explained the gap in the policy making nor the current service delivery process. Hence, the study introduced a model termed as “Fire-fighting Approach” to explain the current water service delivery and how decisions are made. Arguably, decisions of water service delivery are determined by the urgent needs of people and the availability of financial resources and technical capabilities. These decisions are not necessarily consistent with the water policies. Lastly, the study recommends policy/decision makers to enhance the accountability mechanism, outsource tasks that they have little capabilities with, boost the role of think tanks and issue needed regulative policies while gradually translating them into actions.

Actions (For repository staff only : Login required)