CED's sustainable development programs improve public health and protect natural resources in the West Bank and Jordan Valley by empowering local communities to manage and care for their environment.
CED works in alliance with others at the local, national, regional and global level, to help shape a future of peace and security through the efficient and equitable management of natural resources.
CED conducts programs in two sectors:
(1) Youth Empowerment – for behavioral change that builds an environmental ethic and complementary education which enhances the capacity of youth to contribute to civil society; and
(2) Environmental Capacity Development – for executive management and leadership to provide appropriate environmental services, practices and policies.
Partnership for Peace Program (PPP)
CED-Palestine and Towns Association for Environmental Quality are leading the Partnership for Peace Program (PPP), financed by the European Commission.
The PPP grew from CED's Tri-lateral Environmental Peace Program (TEPP), that since 2002 has included experts from Jordan, Japan, US, EU in addition to Israelis and Palestinians. Now with CED-Palestine and TAEQ leading implemention, the program focuses on appropriate solutions developed in the region to resolve mutually shared environmental problems.
The three-year program encompasses five working groups: wastewater treatment, solid waste management, hazardous and medical wastes, organic agriculture and youth leadership for environmental stewarship. Each working group consists of Palestinian and Israeli experts and beneficiary participants that jointly plan, build and implement solutions to the environmental problems.
Promoting Environmental Services for Palestinian Joint Councils (PES-PJC) Pilot Project: Jericho Environmental District (JED)
CED works to develop robust locally-controlled institutional frameworks, and provide the necessary capacity development to sustain environmental remediation, in the face of a devastating political situation.
Institutional capacity is developed in partnership with both local representative bodies and national entities, thereby strengthening, especially in the Palestinian territories, struggling efforts to provide local environmental services and address local problems.
The only way to solve the urgent probem of uncontrolled pollution of the West Bank, and to prevent the imminent environmental catastrophe in this region, with the possible irreversible contamination of the mountain aquifer, is for the Palestinians and the Israelis to work together to agree on and implement the necessary solutions.
Pollution Knows No Boundaries - Degrading environmental quality in the West Bank negatively impacts both human health and economic activity while existing government institutions struggle to address these challenges.
Environmental problems related to water and pollution in the region are ever-present and intrinsically tied to cross-border cooperation, while efforts to alleviate them fluctuate with the political situation.
Whether it is sewage flowing from Tulkarm across the 'Green Line' into Israel, in the Emek Hefer region, or else the untreated raw sewage flowing from the Jewish and Arab neighbourhoods of East Jerusalem down the Kidron valley towards the Dead Sea.
The TEPP working group is comprised of Palestinian, Israeli, Jordanian, North American, European, Japanese and other environmentalists and NGOs, who are committed to transboundary and regional cooperation, as the only solution to the environmental problems of the West Bank and Jordan Valley area.
Kishon River Restoration in the Partnership for Peace Program
Environmental cooperation in the Kishon River Restoration Program is how Israeli and Palestinian Mayors work together to preserve the ancient cultural inheritance of the river.
The Kishon River begins in the mountains of Samaria near Jenin then flows through beautiful green valleys until it reaches the sea at Haifa. The vision of the Kishon River Restoration Program is to make the entire corridor a regional treasure of nature, history and beauty.
The most pressing problem is to clean up the dangerous industrial pollution in the Haifa area. But, it is also important to stop pollution and raw sewage that flow into the upper river.
The Kishon River offers an unprecedented opportunity for environmental cooperation. The CED program will host conversations between the mayors of Haifa and Jenin, who have offered to work together to clean up and beautify this extraordinary area.
