Economic and Social Council - 13 - Press Release ECOSOC/5788 39th Meeting (AM) 23 July 1998
manufacturing accounting for about 20 per cent of such output. However, grater amounts of invested capital did not appear to produce proportional increases in worker output, indicating that better management and marketing techniques may be needed to allow Palestinian businesses to take full advantage of additional capital investment.
In general, smaller firms have higher rates of return, perhaps owing to their ability to more easily adapt production and sales to political turbulence, such as closures, and to other obstacles in the economic environment.
The Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights trains police commanders in the Gaza Strip and participates in bilateral police training courses. A major objective of the programme is to assist the Palestinian Authority in establishing a legal framework consistent with international human rights standards.
The UNDP Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People was initiated in 1978, the report states. As mandated by Assembly resolution 33/147, the aim of the Programme was to improve the economic and social conditions of the Palestinian people by identifying their social and economic needs and by establishing concrete projects to that end. The UNDP was both a donor to the Palestinian people, through the programming of more than $13 million of core UNDP resources since 1994, and an implementation partner of the Palestinian Authority through the implementation of projects funded through large-scale bilateral donor contributions.
The UNDP also supported participatory planning methods and the decentralization of decision-making through its large-scale Local Rural Development Programme. Through its Agricultural Development Programme, the UNDP provided large-scale assistance at both the ministerial and field levels. UNDP also continued its support to the tourism sector by providing capacity- building assistance to the Ministry of Tourism and Antiquities.
The report says the activities of the United Nations Development Fund for Women (UNIFEM) in the West Bank and Gaza Strip since 1993 aim at strengthening the capacity of governmental and non-governmental organizations to mainstream gender-related issues in national planning and the State- building process. Since 1997, UNIFEM has been providing assistance to the Palestinian people through three projects: a post-Beijing follow-up operation; the women in development facilitation initiative; and the enterprise development project for women in the Gaza Strip.
The report also contains updates on assistance received by the Palestinian people in the occupied territories during the reporting period from United Nations agencies and programmes. Those included the Department of Economic and Social Affairs, the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA), the FAO, the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), the
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