Last week, Enabel organized an information session on the newly developed Area Resilience Development (ARD) initiative for all its key stakeholders. The initiative is supported by the Belgian Development Cooperation, together with the European Union, national and international NGO’s, APLA and the Ministry of Local Governance.  
 
The ARD initiative aims to create a more effective decentralized administration in the West Bank and to overcome the fragmentation of the territory by re-integrating area C.  

The focus will lie on facilitating local development dynamics, reducing disparities, strengthening social cohesion, developing an equal access to basic services and free circulation, and promoting a good participatory administration of the territory at all relevant territorial levels.  

Furthermore, local institutions and actors will be encouraged to work together to define priorities and to plan and implement development strategies of their localities where the territory is considered as the primary resource (including social, natural, physical, cultural, institutional and economic local resources). This way, the territory also becomes an actor of local economic development.  

Plans have already been drawn up for 6 different clusters: Khalet El-Maya, the East Bethlehem JSC (Tuqu, Beit Tamar & Jannata), Barta, Bani Zaid, Beit Leqya and Jourt Amra JSC.