Program Overview
Creating positive relations between the Israelis and Palestinians can be more easily facilitated when there exists a vital necessity, such as water, that provides the common denominator between the two groups. USAID supports this innovative and environmentalist approach through the "Good Water Neighbors" (GWN) program. The project is implemented in 13 Palestinian and Israeli cross-border communities, meaning that there exists a border/political divide between the partnered communities. The project utilizes the mutual dependence on shared water resources as a basis for developing dialogue and cooperation.
In each community, field staff members work in close partnership with youth, adults and municipalities to improve awareness of the environment, particularly the neighboring community’s water. By undertaking concrete activities that are highly relevant to the needs of the communities involved, the GWN project aims to promote common understanding of water and environmental issues. Simultaneously, GWN strives to build trust between the cross-border communities as the basis for Israeli-Palestinian conflict resolution and peace building.
USAID’s implementing partners of this project, EcoPeace/Friends of the Earth Middle East (FoEME), received the 2008 Heroes of the Environment Award from Time Magazine due to their strategy of environmental activism to foster peace. Furthermore, the GWN program was specifically cited in EcoPeace/FoEME’s 2009 Skoll Award for Social Entrepreneurship as a leading example of cross border initiatives that have fostered collaboration and increased awareness of common interests.
Goals
• Advance dialogue in cross-border communities by utilizing the mutual interest of common water and environmental issues
• Promote common understanding, conflict resolution and the shared interest of achieving peace
• Improve environmental awareness relevant to each respective community, particularly related to water resources
Successes
• Hundreds of youth learn through the “WaterCare” program (based on a text book written by Palestinian and Israeli teachers) about the shared nature of water resources and need for cooperation.
• Children participate in dozens of activities as “Water Trustees,” learning about environmental hazards in their community and cross-border water problems in particular.
• Israeli and Palestinian youth participate in joint ecological building workshops where they learn skills that can then be used to implement eco-projects in their own communities and schools.
• Water conservation projects are set up in each of the participating communities, including ecological gardens, reconstructed wetlands (treating grey water), and rainwater harvesting systems.
• Hundreds of “Neighbors Paths” tours have been carried out, which highlight the natural and cultural heritage of each “Good Water Neighbor” community and its respective water resources, both in the past and in the present. Special focus is given to the interdependent nature of the water resource in regards to the neighboring/partnering community.
• Mayors have met to discuss common environmental projects and successfully leveraged additional support for specific projects that include:
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The removal of olive mill waste from the Palestinian Tulkarem area olive mills into the Israeli Emek Hefer Regional Council’s area, where better treatment of olive waste was offered
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Bringing in the involvement of UNDP/Japan to fund the connection of sewage systems between the Palestinian Baka el Sharkia and the Israeli area of Baka el Gharbia
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Accepting a French NGO investment to help the sewage problems in Wadi Fukin and the construction of an Environmental Education Center in Auja
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Renewed cooperation between the mayor offices of Tulkarem and Emek Hefer.
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