Ref: 13/2022

Date: 26 April 2022

In a new report published on Tuesday, 26 April 2022, the Palestinian Centre for Human Rights (PCHR) demanded the Palestinian government to urgently disburse the social affairs dues “Cash Transfer Program” (CTP) to beneficiaries, including the accrued payments, and to fully adhere to fixed disbursement dates.

Also, PCHR recommended in its report titled “Poverty in Palestine: Nonstop Upward Indicator” that Palestinian laws shall be aligned to comply with the conventions signed by the Palestinian Authority (PA). This includes the adoption of new policies to enact laws binding the Palestinian government to guarantee social protection for the poor. Additionally, PCHR called on the Palestinian government to localize the CTP and not linking it with the international donors’ funds.

Moreover, the report highlighted the repercussions of unpaid disbursement of CTP dues to the poor in Palestine and included affidavits of beneficiary families in the West Bank and Gaza Strip talking about their ongoing suffering due to non-payment of their dues, rendering them unable to meet their basic needs in order to live a dignified life.

The report also reviewed the statistics of the poor in Palestine and indicated that nearly third of the population (29.2%) in Palestine lives in poverty as the poverty rate in the Gaza Strip is 53% that is four times more than the West Bank where the poverty rate is (13.9%.).  Meanwhile, third of the Gaza Strip population lives in abject poverty (33.7%) compared to (5.8%) in the West Bank. Moreover, the food insecurity rates increased in Palestine to 32.7% and increased as well in the Gaza Strip to 68.5% in light of the deteriorating economic conditions.

According to the report, the number of families benefiting from the CTP is 115,000 of 610,000 persons, with Gaza having the biggest share of the CTP beneficiaries recording around 69% of the total percentage as the poverty rate in the Gaza Strip is higher than the West Bank. The report reviewed the criteria for selecting the CTP beneficiaries, the extent to which the program can absorb new beneficiaries, especially in light of the increase in poverty rates triggered by the deteriorating economic conditions in Palestine and the mechanism for determining the amount of financial support allocated to the beneficiary families.

Furthermore, the report emphasized that depriving the poor families in Palestine, particularly the CTP beneficiaries, of their financial dues violates the 2003 amended PBL and other Palestinian laws such as the Palestinian Disability law No. 4 of 1999 and amended Palestinian Child Law No. 7 of 2004. Also, the ongoing non-disbursement of the poor’s dues violates Palestine’s obligations under international conventions, particularly the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights.