Palestine
Context
The humanitarian context of the Occupied Palestinian Territory (OPT) is a protracted protection crisis.
With more than 50 years of Israeli occupation, insufficient respect for international humanitarian and human rights is a reality. Escalations of hostilities between Israeli security forces and Palestinian armed groups are recurrent.
As a result, significant humanitarian and protection challenges prevail, including inadequate access to essential services for the most vulnerable. Coverage of basic WASH services, for instance, is only 23% in schools, in both Gaza and the West Bank.
Project profile
| Focus | Schools |
| Location(s) | – Pilot phase: 10 schools in the governorates of Hebron (7), Ramallah (2) and Nablus (1) – Implementation phase: 20 schools (to be selected in the second half of 2022) |
| Roles of consortium partner(s) involved | – Cesvi (lead): coordination, behavioural change strategy, user-centered design and adoption at scale – PPU: impact evaluation, field methods and field technical evaluation support |
| Local and strategic stakeholders | – Schools – Ministry of Education and Higher Education (MOEHE) – Ministry of Health – Palestinian Water Authority (PWA) – WASH Cluster |
| Project overview | The project’s primary goal is to implement and evaluate the effectiveness of low-cost and resource-efficient WASH interventions, using an integrative and holistic approach based on research and contribution from multiple disciplines (incl. gender studies, psychology, engineering, research, and analysis). The WASH interventions will be related to the actual needs of the Palestinian schools, both in area A, B and C, and will include maintenance, water consumption management, improvement of water safety and awareness and behaviour change approaches related to student hygiene practices (RANAS tools). The aim of the activities is to set up sustainable and improved solutions and soft activities to: (i) Manage hygiene conditions in schools and (ii) Understand the overall system, in order to identify the potential for improvement actions. |
| Main activities | – Testing innovative handwashing technical solutions – Market assessments for the innovative solutions – Stakeholder and context WASH situation mapping – Behaviour change for handwashing with children in schools (RANAS approach) – Assessment and local analysis of the WASH situation in schools |
| Expected results / products | – Improvement of the hygiene situation for children in schools – Evaluation of the impact of the innovative solution(s) proposed – Evaluation of the impact of the RANAS tool-kits – Map and connections of stakeholders and context for WASH situation in schools – Research and data on WASH situation in schools |
News on h4h activities in Palestine
- World Water Day 2023
An opportunity to accelerate change for hand hygiene World Water Day 2023, which is celebrated on March 22nd, is about accelerating change to solve the water and sanitation crisis. At current rates of progress,… Read More »World Water Day 2023 - Improving the WASH systems in Palestinian schools
A project update to celebrate World Water Day 2023 A variety of different activities has been ongoing in Palestine within the framework of the hands4health project. In light of the World Water Day… Read More »Improving the WASH systems in Palestinian schools