Palestine for Development Foundation, PIF’s arm for community investment, signed an agreement to support the Palestinian National Coalition for Employment of Persons with Disability, established by the Ministry of Labor together with Stars of Hope Society to empower women with disability. PIF’s support will be used to implement the Coalition’s strategic plan, raise the percentage of integration of persons with disability in the labor market, and increase their potential access to employment and economic empowerment programs.

Dr. Mohammad Mustafa, chairman of PIF Board of Directors, said: “the importance of this support comes from PIF’s commitment towards all segments of our Palestinian people, and its focus on providing more job opportunities for the vulnerable and disadvantaged groups. The agreement is the actual interpretation of the principle of public-private sector partnership and collaboration, including also civil society organizations.”

Dr. Mustafa added: “PIF is currently focusing on the employment and entrepreneurship sector. It is implementing a range of programs and projects that aim at creating employment and financing opportunities that target various groups and segments of the Palestinian people, such as “Ibdaa’” – ‘start’ in Arabic- that targets youth; the economic empowerment program for Palestinian refugees in Lebanon; the Program of Jerusalem grants for small and medium enterprises as well as other programs that benefit women and persons with disability.”

In his turn, his Excellency Dr. Nasri Abu Jish, Palestinian Minister of Labor, stressed “the importance of implementing the strategic plan for the employment of persons with disability as well as integrating them in the various employment programs.”

He stressed also the ‘need to develop a national policy that regulates the right of persons with disability to decent work, raise awareness among employers of the rights of persons with disability, contribute towards improving the work methods of economic empowerment programs for persons with disability, and enhance their access to vocational training services as well as create employment mechanisms and follow up at the working in the field.”

Dr. Abu Jish added: “this support will go towards the successful implementation of the strategic plan for employment of persons with disability. This is aligned with the Ministry’s vision and objectives to have a development-driven, optimally regulated Palestinian labor market that operates in accordance with relevant legislations that regulate, activate it in line with the international best practices and standards.”

In his turn, Mr. Rami Mehdawi, Director General of Employment at the Ministry of Labor and the Coalition’s coordinator, said: “we are pleased and proud of this partnership with the Ministry of Labor on the one side and PIF that has provided this support on the other. This support is the result of partnership and concerted efforts between us as private and public sectors institutions to serve persons with disability who are an integral part of our Palestinian people, and reflect everyone’s contribution towards integrating this group in the Palestinian Labor market and providing them with means of decent livelihood.”

Mr. Jamal Haddad, Director Generation of Palestine for Development Foundation, said: “the Foundation is implementing PIF’s strategy in terms of community investment. It believes that investment in human is the most effective type of investments. Thus, the Foundation implements a series of programs that serve large segments of our Palestinian people, primarily youth, women, and even refugees outside the country. The Foundation cooperates with a range of local financing institutions to provide different forms of funding for entrepreneurship and youth projects, including projects for persons with disability.”