The importance of financial inclusion, globally and locally. Published in This Week in Palestine October 2022 issue Financial inclusion has led global economic development trends in recent decades. The concept of financial inclusion refers to “individuals and businesses having access to useful and affordable financial products and services that meet their needs – transactions, payments, …
Palestinian life is filled with cultural references that tie Palestinians to their “naturalenvironment.” The olive tree has become a symbol of Palestinian steadfastness, andhardly a day passes in Palestine without a reference to the land, sea, and air thatPalestinians have been denied. Despite the patriotic slogans, however, speaking aboutthe environment and climate challenges is considered to be a luxury in manyPalestinian communities. Decades-long occupation has clouded most of the discourse,with many Palestinians considering any other conversation to be secondary or “lessimportant” at best, and “imported” or “Western,” at worst. This understanding of the environment is extremely problematic, mainly because itignores the importance of environmental and resource sustainability to Palestinianliberation from occupation, dependency, and underdevelopment. While Palestine’scontribution to global greenhouse gas emissions is minuscule, the impact of climatechange in Palestine is expected to be severe. In Palestine and the region, thecombination of rising temperatures and decreased rainfall is expected to dramaticallyincrease demand for water, which is an already scarce resource, inflicting significantharm in agricultural production capacity. Combined with the impact of Israelirestrictions and settlement expansion on the water resources and land area availablefor agriculture, climate challenges are expected to have catastrophic implications forfood security in Palestine. For this reason, efforts that focus on improving food securityand sustainability in Palestine and the region are likely to intensify. Despite the absence of a clear and systematic approach to addressing environmentaland climate challenges at the national level, a number of renewable energy, watertreatment, and waste management projects have been developed with support fromthe Palestinian government and international donor organizations that today form theseed for environmental transformation. The development of these projects has mainlybeen driven by the need to ensure the sustainability of vital resources such as energyand water at an affordable cost. To build on existing efforts, more actors need to payattention to resource sustainability in the agriculture sector. Out of over 5 million Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, around a third (1.7million, mostly in Gaza) are food insecure, and a further 16.8 percent (841,000) aremarginally food secure.*1 Food insecurity is only expected to increase due to populationgrowth, increasing international commodity prices, and Israeli restrictions on trade(and associated costs), in addition to the reduced capacity for food production due toshrinking land area and water reserves. Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza import most of their food, while their ability toproduce their food on their land is increasingly constrained. To ensure food security,Palestinians have little choice but to adopt technologies and practices that can radicallyimprove conservation of soil quality, water resources, and other agricultural inputs.This could enable the sector to grow sustainably to serve a growing population despitethe challenges. Adopting more advanced technologies and cultivation methods such ashydroponic farming, vertical farming, and fully controlled and monitoredenvironments (greenhouses), can help farmers produce three to six times the amountof produce, with significantly reduced water use and minimal levels of harmfulchemicals. Hydroponic cultivation, for example, can save up to 95 percent of the neededwater for growing greens and a range of vegetables, including widely consumed, water-intensive crops such as tomatoes and cucumbers. Plastic bags placed on arcuate faqqous grown in the town of Deir Ballout in the Salfit governorate. Photo by Daoud Abdallah, Palestinian Assembly for Photography and Exploration. Despite the great potential of agricultural technology in the Palestinian context, thereare several challenges that impede its development. Advanced agriculture is capitalintensive and requires tight operational management and specialized expertise, whichis often lacking in the local market. The availability of risk capital to invest inagricultural technology development can significantly expedite the pace of transition. Many Palestinians in the West Bank remember the images of cucumbers beingdisposed of in empty agricultural areas in Tulkarem during 2020. The dissemination ofthe images on social media channels triggered a public conversation. Farmers reportedtheir inability to sell their produce as storage costs mounted, leading them to dispose ofthe produce. Difficulty in selling produce is a major challenge for farmers in Palestine andworldwide. Farmers often lack access to the networks, knowledge, or time to ensurethat their produce reaches customers. Marketing and sales require time and access tonetworks of resellers, wholesalers, and in some cases consumers directly. Whenfarmers cannot access a feasible sales channel, they dump their produce to avoid costlystorage. In addition, the fluctuation in agricultural production, which is mainly causedby seasonality and the inability of markets to allocate produce rapidly and at asatisfactory price for both the farmer and the consumer. Dumping of agricultural produce in Tulkarem, Palestine, 2021. Photo courtesy of Ultra Palestine In our region, where the movement of people, products, and capital is restricted bylayers of politics and bureaucracy, shortening supply chains could contribute toimproved food security and the development of local productive industries, whileplaying a part in the region’s adaptive response to climate change. To allow for thisgradual transition towards shorter supply chains, actors should pay more attention toimproved efficiency and planning of the cultivation process to improve themanagement of supply quantities to match the less fluctuating demand. Planning can be further improved through the adoption of advanced cultivationtechnologies. One advantage of controlled cultivation systems is that they enablefarmers to grow crops during most of the year with shorter cultivation cycles. Thisallows farmers the flexibility to adjust their cultivation strategy throughout the year tosmooth fluctuations in demand and supply. Sector stakeholders should also focus on innovative solutions to boost farmers’ accessto local markets and reduce the number and control of intermediaries in the supplychain. With improved public access to the digital world, new tools could be leveraged tobetter link farmers to traders and even to the end users directly, circumventingtraditional open markets where producers have to compete with local representativesof much larger Israeli producers. In addition, using controlled cultivation systems couldhelp farmers produce much higher yields on smaller plots of land, with reduced needfor agricultural inputs such as soil, fertilizers, and pesticide. This enables farmers to setup farms closer to the urban markets which they serve. Importing agricultural inputs remains a significant cost for the Palestinian economy.In 2019, animal feed was Palestine’s third-largest import in terms of value, with aroundUS$204.6 million (9.6 percent of total import bill and 1.3 percent of GDP in 2019) spent onimported preparations used in animal feed. In addition, conversations with localproducers of animal feed indicate that most of the inputs used in local production ofanimal feed are also imported from or through Israel. In the same year, the value ofimported fertilizers reached US$9 million. Although this amount is much smaller whencompared to animal feed imports, the official figures are likely to be skewed due to theinformality of fertilizer purchases from Israel. Israel currently bans standardconcentration fertilizers typically used for intensive agriculture; this continues to be amajor impediment to the sector’s development and drives farmers to avoid reportingpurchases of fertilizers outlawed by Israel. Municipal solid waste …
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My colleagues and close friends accuse me of always managing to adapt my thinking and envision a positive outcome or a new status quo. Seldom is my ambitious thinking considered practical or expected to deliver the desired output. But I am sure that life is about doing the right thing while submitting to a journey that evolves naturally – not always leading straight to the imagined final destination. Palestinian society is made up of individuals who are categorized by their gender, age group, economic status, level of education, location, and numerous other categories and subcategories. These individuals have human rights that need to be ensured, respected, and protected. They have common basic human needs, as outlined brilliantly by Abraham Maslow in his 1943 paper “A Theory of Human Motivation.” Maslow’s hierarchy of needs represented as a pyramid with the more basic needs at the bottom. On an individual level, we have a duty to demand and fight for our rights and completefreedom. In addition, we have a responsibility to work towards fulfilling our needs. Strong individuals make a strong society that then selects, informs, and guides a strong administration and governance body. Collectively, the individuals, society, and public governance establishment create a strong nation and state. This is a bottom-up development, and individuals carry responsibility, especially when a government has been weakened. The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has shaken our world. It has proven that countries and governments are incapable of sustaining economic cycles and worse, it has pinpointed the limitations of what could be done to upgrade and administer a crucial healthcare system. In the context of Palestine, the mission to minimize the repercussions is even more complex, given the abnormal starting point of the geo-socio-economic-political status of our occupied reality prior to the mega shock. Palestinian society was already suffering from a very high unemployment rate before the crisis. Our economy is small, consuming more than it produces and lacking self-sufficiency and independence across the spectrum of economic sectors. Nevertheless, our people have shown great resilience in the face of adversity. But perhaps we needed the pandemic nudge in order to take another in-depth look inward and adjust our planning to practically execute our agenda of putting our citizens first. I would like to argue that the facilitation of entrepreneurship awareness, education, and practice conjoined with the utilization of innovation and technology will play a significant role in the post-pandemic future of an even more resilient Palestinian society and nation. Progress is inevitable and it is driven by scientific research and advancement in technological innovation. In the past decades, long-established industries and traditional business models have been disrupted and remodeled. Artificial intelligence, automation, and digital transformation, whilst creating new specialized opportunities for income generation, are eliminating jobs for millions of others. When deliberating the ongoing trends and the future of job markets, we discuss the future freelance or gig economy. Millions of people are generating disposable income by selling products and services online. Indeed, e-commerce technology has reduced significantly the investment capital required to start a business, allowing entrepreneurs to create virtualrather than physical stores, and enabling them to market their services and products through various social media platforms while utilizing efficient, targeted sales and marketing tools. The market size is no longer limited by geographical borders, and the delivery of products is powered by a global logistics chain that is continuously upgrading to fulfill anyone’s needs – as long as he or she can afford it. In sum, our world is connected, and this presents an opportunity that requires realization. The population of planet Earth will soon be nearing 8 billion, with immense and growing demands for products and services. At the same time, this population is also responsible for producing the supply necessary to respond to the growing demand and may not remain idle on the receiving end of the transaction. We are all fortunate to have been born and to be alive today. Life is neither smooth nor easy, but it is the small moments of love and achievements that are worth the fight. We didn’t have the luxury of choosing the circumstances in which we arrived, but we are responsible for knowing and understanding ourselves in order to steer our lives with the best of our knowledge and capabilities on a continuous basis. Next comes the examination of our surroundings, the consideration of our families, communities, and the people we interact with on a daily basis. We need to think about how we could contribute to the well-being and needs of others while also satisfying our individual needs. This simple exercise is the basis that could translate into an entrepreneurial project of any size or level of complexity. Domains of the Entrepreneurship Ecosystem model by Daniel Isenberg, Babson Global. The role of the government is crucial in laying the foundation for a thriving entrepreneurship ecosystem. The focus of the Palestinian government – after taking into consideration the particularity of Palestine and the harsh reality of the Israeli occupation – lies in devising policies and introducing regulations and pioneering initiatives that will ensure the effectiveness of the six entrepreneurship core domains that were theorized by the Babson Global Entrepreneurshipproject, namely culture, markets, human capital, finance, supports, and policy. In my opinion, there is nothing much that a government can do to change cultural attitudes towards entrepreneurship. This task relies precisely on us who must individually support our peers when they are starting their own projects. We do so by buying food and products produced locally and responding to an individual’s trials and failures with encouragement and support. If entrepreneurs don’t fail, they don’t learn, and we need to allow more space for this in our culture. Education is another very important cornerstone. Last year at a TEDx event, I had the opportunity to present a talk titled “Entrepreneurship for the Underdeveloped.” I concluded that our best bet for planning for a more equitable future with improved social, economic, and also political conditions requires focusing on entrepreneurial education in the upbringing of a resilient Palestinian future generation that considers itself to be citizens of the world. I proposed that the required entrepreneurship education framework should be designedto cover the following pillars: First, it should be characterized by comprehensiveness, which means that it should be at once multidisciplinary, interdisciplinary, and transdisciplinary. Second, it must promote critical thinking and problem-solving. Third, it has to provide a high level of exposure in terms of skills, technologies, and cultures. Fourth, it must promote a growth mindset and unlock an individual’s potential. And finally, it must inspire to be and do good. The above is not all platonic idealism and abstract theoretical thinking. Taking into account the reality of our lives in Palestine, it is clear and obvious that neither the public sector nor the private sector will be able to provide the required number of jobs, and the growth projection of our economy is extremely humble and contained; add to this the projected sudden and rapid influx into the market of a young and educated Palestinian workforce that seeks employment. Individuals pursuing disposable-income-generating activities or the initiation of local entrepreneurship activities will eventually become the new norm, yet not necessarily less challenging. Even though it is a lonely and difficult pursuit, entrepreneurship provides room for innovation and self-expression. It offers a path to financial independence or additional income once an entrepreneur has identified the goods and services that are of clear value and that respond to a certain demand, preferably focusing on our community and homeland. All this is a genuine attempt to keep Palestine alive and on its feet. Originally posted in the June 2020 issue of ‘This Week in Palestine’ . Authored by …
