In December 2004, The World Bank presented a set of papers entitled Stagnation or Revival? Israeli Disengagement and Palestinian Economic Prospectsto the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee of international donors who, working with the Palestinian Authority (PA) and the Government of Israel (GOI), play a central role in the financing of Palestinian economic development. The Bank argued that the Palestinian economy can not recover without an efficient and predictable means of moving goods and people throughout the West Bank and Gaza, across Palestinian borders to Israel and beyond, and between Gaza and the West Bank. Costly and unreliable trade logistics, in conjunction with today's security-related regime of movement restrictions, were identified as the major impediment to improving Palestinian market access and competitiveness. The Bank believes that today's management of the bilateral borders between Israel and the Palestinian Territory, which are inefficient and detrimental to Palestinian trade a nd development, can be fundamentally improved without compromising Israeli security. What is needed is a systematic attempt to balance security with trade facilitation, through the redesign of border crossing facilities, the adoption and monitoring of new management procedures and the appropriate use of modern security technologies. Most of these changes require Israeli or joint Israeli-Palestinian action. However, the PA also needs to take steps to improve its own capacity and infrastructure through the development of a Palestinian Border Services Agency as the umbrella organization that will oversee the operations of the PA technical agencies with border management functions, such as the customs and security services. Security in transport and at borders is an integral element of economic efficiency. The Bank has been engaged over the past year in reviewing the current situation, working in depth with the PA, the Government of Israel, the Quartet Special Envoy, the United States and the EC, and chairing trilateral negotiations on bilateral border reform. As part of this process the Bank has prepared for the use of the various parties a considerable number of technical notes; these have formed the background for the negotiations process, and are strongly reflected in the text of the GOI/PA Agreement on Movement and Accessbrokered by Secretary of State Rice on November 15, 2005. These policy notes are available on this website.
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