The participants of the hearing session held by The Civil Society Team for Public Budget Transparency at AMAN Coalition “Secretariat of the team” on the developments of the unified portal of social assistance agreed on the necessity of framing exerted efforts to coordinate between social assistance providers through a law that regulates these efforts and interventions and protects the rights and privacy and the targeted segments in a way that ensures justice, prevents duplication in the distribution of such assistances, minimizes opportunities of corruption and bribery, and finally approved through consultation with the civil society and all relevant parties.
The session was attended by Dr. Mohammad Abu Humaid, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Social Development, representatives of relevant entities, especially the Zakat Committee, UNRWA, governorates, security services, State Audit & Administration Control Bureau, Red Crescent Society, and several institutions from the civil society and the private sector who stressed on the importance of this portal in coordinating the efforts of social assistances providers, especially the Ministry of Development, to enhance their transparency and integrity in providing such assistances, and ensure appropriate distribution without injustice to one category at the expense of another.
Dr. Mohammad Abu Humaid, Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Social Development pointed out to the difficulty of achieving the Ministry’s objectives in the light of the tyranny of relief over the developmental work, the issue that pushed the Ministry to take measure that create balance between the two sides without affecting beneficiary groups whose numbers, in the last batch, reached 109,000 families in the West Bank and Gaza and who receive annual assistances of 520 million Shekels, of which 40 million Euros paid by the European Union, $10 million by the World Bank, while the rest of the amount is paid by the public treasury.
Dr. Abu Humaid stated that the Ministry has started a new phase which is based on two parallel lines: relief and development, providing the first to those who need it from the elderly, women, children, and people with special needs, while working on the development of individuals capable of work through supporting projects whose numbers so far reached 24000 projects.
Dr. Abu Humaid also stressed that the idea of establishing a unified portal for humanitarian assistance came to enable the Ministry and its partners to achieve protection for those who need it through creating a participatory framework that combines unorganized relief efforts that have led to a duplication of services at the expense of depriving other groups. This has resulted the Council of Ministers to issue a decision in January to establish the portal that allows all providers of relief services to know the beneficiaries, their information, the nature of the assistance they receive, and the service providers.
From his side, Mr. Emad Abu Khadija, Director of Information Systems Department at the Ministry, presented a comprehensive explanation of the portal’s site, access mechanisms, and authorized entities that can obtain the information from it, pointing out to the efforts made in cooperation with all parties to start working by the portal, and the consequent coordination between all social services and assistance providers, followed by creating a national plan of required interventions based on accurate and documented information.
Ms. Lubna Madieh, Chief Field Relief and Social Services of UNRWA expressed UNRWA’s intention to partner with the Ministry of Development and other entities in this project stressing that the challenge is represented in the mechanism of sharing the information of beneficiaries from its services, especially because they are governed by the UNRWA Law that reserves the right to share refugees’ information to protect their rights and respect their privacy.
Mr. Hassan Tahboub, General Director of Zakat Fund at the Ministry of Endowment, stressed the necessity of actual work of the portal to activate the principle of partnership with the Ministry whose efforts are considered as the basis of relief work. He emphasized that the Zakat Fund works annually with a budget of $40 million and deal with poverty as poverty regardless of its causes, backgrounds, and political implications.
AMAN’s BoD Consultant Dr.Azmi Shuaibi stressed the necessity of adopting principles of transparency to manage social services files which will reduce chances of corruption between beneficiaries on the one hand, and service providers on the other. He stated that the Civil Team will work to launch a comprehensive national campaign that aims to introduce the portal to all relevant parties in a way that contributes to create awareness of its importance and mechanisms of its work in accordance with the recommendations of participants in the session who also recommended the need to complete a legal framework to regulate the portal’s work, and demanded to propose the project for community discussion for remarks.
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