May 2001 Volume IV, Issue
4
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West Bank and Gaza Special Initiative Partnerships Announced Seven institutions awarded $100,000 grants to work in the region ALO has announced the awardees of last fall's Special Initiative solicitation for partnerships in the West Bank and Gaza. Seven institutions have been named recipients of the $100,000, two-year grants, which are designated to address USAID strategic goals in economic growth, water management, democracy and governance, and public health. USAID opened its Mission for the West Bank and Gaza one year after the signing of the 1993 Middle East peace accords in Oslo, Norway. The Mission's program is an integral part of the U.S. government's role in the Palestinian-Israeli peace process, supporting U.S. interests in promoting regional stability, economic development, and adherence to democratic principles. To help achieve these goals, the following colleges and universities will be working over the coming months in Gaza-West Bank as part of ALO's U.S.-Palestinian Linkages (UPLINK) Program:
The Request for Applications was issued in the summer of 2000, with proposals due by September 26 of last year. Although the peer review and selection process coincided with the renewal of open hostilities in the region, work recently has begun to launch these projects. The support for higher education in the region that the partnerships represent is vital as colleges and universities in West Bank and Gaza struggle to remain open and running (see "A Mix of Grit and Creativity Keeps Palestinian Universities Running" in the February 23, 2001 issue of The Chronicle of Higher Education at http://www.chronicle.com) Before this latest uprising, border closures, school closures, student and faculty detainment and arrests, travel restrictions, and funding problems had hampered efforts to improve the quality of Palestinian education. But now, the Palestinian higher education system is in need of even more significant developmental assistance in the form of institutional, financial, and human resources. The strain on the system has been especially keen in Gaza, where two universities and two community colleges are hard pressed to serve the needs of more than one million residents. In the West Bank, six universities, fifteen community colleges, and a polytechnic institute serve the other 1.7 million people under Palestinian Authority jurisdiction. Economic expansion since the completion of the Wye Accords in 1998 and sustained hiring by the PA have increased the demand for skilled labor, particularly in the areas of management/administration (including financial, public health, and university), banking, entrepreneurship, statistics, water resource management, law (including commercial, intellectual, maritime, arbitration, property, human rights, and water), and information technology. Palestinian higher education institutions are therefore in need of assistance to produce faculty, staff, and students with the relevant skills to meet the unique development challenges confronting the region. The UPLINK Program seeks to increase the capacity of the higher education system to better address both public and private sector needs through faculty and staff upgrading, curriculum development, exchange programs, short-term studies, program development for continuing education, and other activities. Across all institutional partners in this linkage program, an overarching objective will be to build vibrant, enduring, and mutually beneficial ties between the partners and their constituencies. For full descriptions of the UPLINK partnerships, see http://www.aascu.org/alo.
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