Post-war interventions must not wait for a donor conference

By Omar Shaban

The multiplicity of problems and the limitedness of resources:

The war has ended with its madness and remained with its traces on human, stone, and plant. In such circumstances the dilemma lies in determining the priorities. What are the interventions required and obligatory in light of the multiplicity of problems and challenges and the limitedness of resources? The weighing between the important and the less important, and between the necessary and what bears postponement! Thousands of citizens residing in the schools and the public places, cleaning the rubble and the streets, improving the services of water and electricity and garbage collection and the sewage networks, beginning the school season, compensating the harmed and treating the psychological traces on the human being especially the children ….. the list is long. Some of these challenges cannot wait for the recommendations of the donors' conference intended to be held in the middle of the coming month, since the beginning of the implementation of the donors' promises will take a long time. What is required is an emergency governmental plan that suits the size of the problem. Therefore the consensus government must borrow from the banks in order to fund the interventions that do not bear postponement.

The particularity of intervention in the post-war stage:-

In such circumstances the question is always posed: is the focus placed on rebuilding — “restoration”! Is the focus placed on building and development or on reconstruction! In Japan, for example, after the Second World War: the question was, do we direct the effort toward repairing what the war destroyed, or toward building and founding! Genius lies in how to join the two, since time and people's suffering do not wait; rather work must proceed within a vision resting on: what are the activities that can be implemented in parallel, and what are the activities that can only be implemented in succession. Likewise how to balance and order the priorities of the pressure groups: are work opportunities created for the young graduates or for those unemployed in the previous years? Does the priority lie in a swift treatment of poverty and unemployment, or the focus on the strategic projects that bear their fruits after long years?

Yesterday I received a call from one of the important donor institutions asking my opinion: should one hundred million dollars be allocated, what are the three most obligatory interventions that do not wait for postponement and such that they have a great effect on society? This is what I ventured:-

• Proceeding immediately to form tens of crews of carpenters and blacksmiths to build thousands of ready housing units (caravans) to shelter the thousands of families whose houses were destroyed. The harmed must be employed in these projects.

• Improving the services of water, electricity, and sewage in what improves the health situation and prevents the spread of diseases and epidemics, and supporting the municipalities so that they can perform their important role.

• Proceeding immediately to restore the thousands of residential apartments that were partially damaged, in what enables their owners to use them anew and creates work opportunities and restores economic activity

Taking into consideration that tens of local and international institutions began implementing, before the war's end, entertainment programmes for the children and the women, who are in pressing need of such programmes to recover from the psychological shocks, the fear, and the terror because of the war and the continuous bombardment.

A deep and open discussion must be conducted among the strata of society and the components of the political system to determine what are the challenges that must be confronted! And their ordering according to their importance, and how to implement them, and the ways of funding. There is much that must and can be done without waiting for the donors.

Omar Shaban, director of Pal-Think for Strategic Studies, Gaza

Omar@palthink.org