Battle Himns Productions

Palestinian Authority

Palestinian Transparency & Accountability Project Description

The Council’s groundbreaking work in the Palestinian Authority was first made public during the annual conference of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland and received widespread support from around the world, including accolades by organizations such as Transparency International and the World Bank, the U.S. Department of State. In 2006 letter of support, prominent Members of Congress such as House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Tom Lantos wrote “[A]s you may know, the Democracy Council previously founded the Palestinian transparency & Accountability Project and the Palestine Investment Fund to promote financial and governance reform. The group’s work was largely credited with revealing a $900 million gap in the PA budget.

Program Overview

The Palestinian Transparency & Accountability Project (PTAP) is widely viewed as one of the most successful financial and governance reform projects in the Arab World.

The Democracy Council work on PTAP can be broken down into five stages:

1999-2002: Project Development including negotiating access and scope.

2002: Assisting with the legal and operational mandate and structure of the Palestine Investment Fund (PIF), as the new vehicle to own and manage financial assets for the Palestinian Authority (PA). This was achieved by drafting a detailed Articles of Association and Policies & Procedures manual for the PIF. The Articles and Operating Manual represent a system of oversight, and checks and balances that encourage the PA and its agents to undertake commercial activities in a transparent and responsible manner. The system provides, for the first time, a full accounting of all commercial assets owned by the PA.

2002-2003: Identifying and evaluating each asset through a Transparency Diagnostic, followed by a valuation performed by Standard & Poor’s.

2003: Assistance in reforming and restructuring specific assets and government involvement in business sectors, e.g. electricity, petroleum, and border logistics management operations.

2004: Providing assistance on issues of governance and operations of the PIF as a public investment fund.

Follow on work included providing advice and assistance in implementing privatization and governance reforms of specific sectors identified in previous stages.