Title: The political economy of water, pricing in Palestine and how to create incentives for cost recovery

Authors: Meine Pieter Van Dijk

Addresses: Maastricht School of Management (MSM), P.O. Box 1203, 6201 BE Maastricht, Netherlands; UNESCO-IHE Institute for Water Education, P.O. Box 3015, 2601DA Delft, Maastricht, Netherlands; ISS, EUR, P.O. Box 29776, 2502LT The Hague, Netherlands

Abstract: The Water Annex of the Geneva Agreement speaks about equitable sharing of water in Israel and Palestine. It stresses the need to protect, preserve and conserve existing water sources; projects must be implemented on a rational economic basis with adequate pricing. We check the progress with the Annex and discuss the water and sanitation situation in Palestine, before dealing with pricing issues, incentives for cost recovery and possibilities for applying the polluters pays principle. Implementing Annex 10 would allow to monitor the progress more closely. Palestine does not get its fair share of water resources, which limits Palestine's agricultural production. However, the international community has become more aware of the situation. The cost of water is known, the principles to be applied to determine tariffs have been tried out and the structure is in place to come to more realistic pricing in the face of the occupation and climate change.

Keywords: political economy; water pricing; wastewater; Palestine; incentives; cost recovery; sanitation; equitable sharing; Israel; polluters pays; occupation; climate change.

DOI: 10.1504/IJGENVI.2017.083433

International Journal of Global Environmental Issues, 2017 Vol.16 No.1/2/3, pp.106 - 118

Received: 06 Aug 2016
Accepted: 21 Oct 2016
Published online: 29 Mar 2017 *

Full-text access for editors Full-text access for subscribers Purchase this article Comment on this article