Peace Entrenched

Planning for a Palestinian State Should Not Await a Final Settlement

Health: Strong Pulse, but Needs Tending

The health system of a future Palestinian state begins with many strengths, including a relatively healthy population (see Figure 6), a high societal value placed on health, many highly qualified health professionals, national plans for health system development, and a strong base of governmental and nongovernmental institutions. Nonetheless, important areas of concern include poor systemwide coordination of programs and considerable deficits in operating budgets.

Future investments from international donors should be directed toward two areas of priority: (1) integrating the health system more closely, with input from all relevant governmental and nongovernmental stakeholders, and (2) improving health care programs, particularly in public health and primary care. These programs include immunization, micronutrient fortification and supplementation, prevention and treatment of chronic and noninfectious diseases, and treatment of developmental and psychosocial conditions.

The Palestinian health system could constructively absorb between $125 million and $160 million per year in new, additional international support over the first decade of an independent state. This support, combined with increased Palestinian spending for health care, would raise the level of spending on health care per person to an internationally respectable level (see Figures 7 and 8).

Education: More Students, More Investments

Despite having a strong foundation, the Palestinian education system faces notable challenges. These include rising levels of malnutrition, homelessness, and poor health among children; inadequate facilities and supplies; unsafe schools and routes to schools; lack of special-education options for students with special needs; and the absence of life-long learning opportunities. The system is severely underfunded. Meanwhile, student enrollment is expected to increase substantially over the next decade (see Figure 9).

But with proper investment from the international community, a Palestinian state could become a powerful player in the region’s knowledge economy. A stronger education system will be an indispensable down payment on future economic success. Investments should be directed toward expanding enrollments in early childhood programs and secondary schools, making special education available, stressing development of civic skills and social responsibility, modernizing vocational education to produce workers with needed skills, and expanding science and engineering programs at universities.

The Palestinian education system will need between $1 billion and $1.5 billion per year in financing over the first decade of statehood to support national ambitions for development (see Figure 10). This investment level, about four times the current spending level, is based on international benchmarks for spending per pupil in successful education systems.