The EU Attempts to Promote Gender Equality in the Palestinian Authority
Institute for Contemporary Affairs
Founded jointly with the Wechsler Family Foundation
- Since 2007, the EU has donated over 1.8 billion euros to the Palestinians to promote “Gender Equality.” More EU funds were donated to achieving this goal than any other goal.
- Despite the substantial support, the Palestinian Authority has failed to adopt the legislative steps to implement this goal.
- While it had full jurisdiction to pass new legislation, for over 30 years the laws regarding personal status and criminal offenses implemented by the PA are still British Mandate law, Egyptian law (in Gaza), and Jordanian law (in Judea and Samaria).
- While the PA has been willing to take the substantial EU donations, Palestinian society, which is deeply rooted in Islamic Sharia law, rejects “Gender Equality.”
- In order to ensure that the EU aid to the Palestinians is used to reach the goals for which it was donated, the EU must set clear, non-negotiable, benchmarks that the PA must comply with, before any additional funding is provided.
Since 2007, the European Union (EU) has donated over 19.7 billion euros to support programs, projects, and development goals connected to the Palestinians. The development goal that received the largest1 amount of EU funding, 1.81 billion euros, promotes “Gender Equality” in the “West Bank and Gaza Strip.”
Further analysis of the EU aid tracker2 shows that out of this sum, more than 800.7 million euros has been given to the “Central Government.” This means that over 44% of the money has been given directly to the Palestinian Authority.
Considering the centrality of the goal, and the sum donated by the EU to promote it, it is important to assess to what extent the donations have achieved their purpose.
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