West Bank and Gaza - Southern West Bank Solid Waste Management Project

The objective of the Southern West Bank Solid Waste Management Project for West Bank and Gaza is to improve solid waste disposal services for the communities and businesses of Palestinian municipalities and joint services councils in the Bethlehem and Hebron (JSC-H&B) governorates through provision of an efficient socially acceptable and environmentally friendly mechanism, including: (i) strengthening the joint services council administrative and technical capabilities for a cost-effective management of waste disposal services; (ii) improving the waste disposal services through provision of a sanitary landfill facility and related infrastructure; and (iii) carrying out a public awareness campaign for promoting waste minimization, resource recovery and cost recovery for financial viability. There are four components to the project. The first component of the project is institutional strengthening. This component will support consultant's services, workshops, study tours, campaigns, and training for: a) improving JSC-H&B institutional and human resource capacity in policy, operational and administrative aspects of Solid Waste Management (SWM); (b) strengthening Environmental Quality Authority (EQA) in monitoring and reporting on environmental aspects of transfer stations, landfill facilities, and the closure and rehabilitation for interim use of dump sites; and c) public awareness on SWM at the regional and local levels. The second component of the project is development and implementation of solid waste management investments. This component will support: (a) civil works construction of a landfill facility and associated infrastructure (including rehabilitation of existing associated infrastructure); b) civil works and installation of compactors for Hebron Transfer Station; and (c) civil works and installation of waste recycling pilots at the landfill. The third component of the project is innovation window for waste recycling and composting. This component will support consultants services to prepare: (i) the feasibility and design of pilot projects for waste collection optimization, waste minimization, and waste recovery for recycling and composting including plans toward organizing waste pickers (scavengers) into commercially-viable service organizations; and (ii) implementation of pilot schemes in waste recycling which will include investments required to launch small businesses and/or cooperatives. The fourth component of the project is project management, international procurement consultant, and supervision. This component will finance: (i) incremental operating costs of the JSC-H&B Technical Operations Unit (TOU) including mainly staff salaries, operational costs and travel related costs associated with training and conference participation; (ii) services of an international procurement consultant; and (iii) a consultant firm for supervision of construction and operational management contract(s).