The national public space policy is a major milestone within the five-year lifespan of the HAYA Joint Programme funded by the government of Canada. Over the course of its work with HAYA, UN-Habitat began by developing, implementing, and analyzing different comprehensive approaches to prevent and respond to violence against women and girls in the Palestinian community, especially in public spaces.
Once the best practices were identified, UN-Habitat, in cooperation with MoLG employed innovative and pioneering approaches to assess, design and implement interventions, contributing to the safety and inclusiveness of public spaces. The interventions have helped to provide almost 280,550 women and almost 295,200 men with safe access and use of these public spaces.
The Policy Paper involves a comprehensive integration of culture, urbanization, economy, and social life sectors into sound governance and legislation regulating the development of public spaces, defining a roadmap toward the desired goals and laying the foundations for doing so, focusing on the less developed areas to reach all community groups without discrimination.
The Policy will provide guidance and be integrated in all future public space plans and interventions throughout Palestine, while considering relevant cultural and social, economic, governance, and legal, environmental, and urban factors. This will not only improve the overall quality of Palestinian cities but also the social, economic, and cultural life within them.
Through national and local efforts to institutionalize this policy and monitor its results, UN-Habitat through the HAYA Joint Programme, will continue to work with its partners to achieve sustainable impact on the ground which will mean safer and more inclusive cities for all.
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