Palestinians and donors playing with fire: 25 years of water projects in the West Bank

ABSTRACT

This article explores how Palestinian-led, donor-supported water projects have transformed societal interactions concerning water since 1994. It distinguishes spatial, institutional and sectoral trajectories of water and explores the impacts on each type of trajectory. It demonstrates that the overall impact of these projects is more than the sum of the individual projects. All together, they entail territorial change. Wastewater and reuse projects transform the largest flows and have the greatest impact on water trajectories. Overall, the recharge of the upper unconfined aquifer is compromised, with negative effects for the grass-roots farmer institutions managing it.

KEYWORDS:

• Water projects
• Palestinian water
• water governance
• territorial change
• water infrastructure

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the authors.

Supplementary material

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Additional information

Funding

This work was supported by the Agence Française de Développement [Grant 153237].