The cooperation with Palestine has been paused

Below we describe what the cooperation has looked like so far. 

The Swedish Environmental Protection Agency and the Palestinian Environment Quality Authority (EQA) have cooperated since 2018 in a program with the aim of supporting the Strengthening Palestinian Environmental Action Programme in the implementation of EQA's strategic action plan.

The collaboration was affected by the situation during the pandemic and at times had to be conducted remotely with contacts by phone and digital solutions. Due to this, the collaboration was extended until the end of December 2023. Some examples of activities carried out during the collaboration include:

• Workshop in Palestine on climate. This resulted in a draft project plan on how EQA could establish a Measurement, Reporting and Verification (MRV) system for climate monitoring and reporting.
• Several online meetings were held to finalize the project plan and find ways forward to implement an MRV system. Outcomes included the transformation of the draft project plan into an EQA internal document and a decision to support EQA in a World Bank project by implementing a similar system to the one used in Jordan.
• The Environmental Protection Agency organized a webinar on climate negotiations.
• Workshop in Stockholm on waste, which resulted in three checklists on how to respond to illegal and legal waste shipments and on safe storage. Unfortunately, the planned follow-up to the workshop did not take place.
• Gender mainstreaming measures, such as the preparation of a mapping of women's representation in the Basel-Rotterdam-Stockholm Convention (BRS). A pilot study on the gender aspects of hazardous chemicals and waste from households and a draft action plan for introducing gender mainstreaming in the Environmental Quality Assessment - Capacity Development Programme 2022-2025. Some of the material was presented at the workshop Improving the Capacity of Stakeholders in the Management of Hazardous Chemicals and Waste.
• Activities focusing on environmental awareness in 2022 through a training course for journalism students. The aim was to engage students in the topic of the environment and get them to produce inspiring stories about opportunities to improve waste management in Palestine through podcasts, YouTube clips, videos, articles or infographics, and to publish a selection of the products in different channels.