The Palestinian Authority’s National Policy Agenda: Putting Citizens First (2017-22) identifies digital transformation and the digital economy as a top priority to achieve a strong, inclusive, and sustainable economy. Accounting for 7% of GDP, the Information and Communications Technology (ICT) sector in Palestine already plays an important role and has the potential to grow markedly into a full-fledged digital economy with increased demand from sectors such as agriculture, health, education, and government services. Yet, Palestine still lacks a sound policy and regulatory environment to enable digital infrastructure. 

TeamEurope approach combines instruments and contributions by all development partners from Europe and EU institutions and seeks a digital economic partnership between Europe and partner countries. The EU targets to evolve as a global role model for the digital economy in setting digital standards and supporting developing economies to go digital. TeamEurope cooperation policy promotes a swift, sustainable implementation of the EU Digital for Development (D4D) Agenda and the EU African Union Digital Economy Task Force recommendations. The approach is operationalised through implementation of TeamEurope Digital Response strategies for partner countries. 

The overall objective of this project was to promote rapid economic growth through the digital transformation of Palestine, stimulate innovation, create jobs and speed up access to quality public and private services in order to contribute to the achievement of the SDGs. The specific objectives were to: 

• Objective 1: To propose a TeamEurope response strategy promoting digital transformation and priority areas for support.
• Objective 2: To identify and formulate a programme for EUREP under Annual Action Plan (AAP) 2022.

The final deliverables included a Final Report to the TeamEurope Digital Response Strategy, National Response Strategy Workshop, and finally an Identification and Formulation of the Digital Programme AAP 2022.

Conduct desk research on Digital Economy Country Assessment report by the World Bank and the Digital Maturity Assessment report by UNDP/PAPP 

• Conduct extensive consultations with relevant stakeholders (from government, donors, ongoing supporting programmes, private sector operators from the digital sector, incubators/accelerators)
• Define of a TeamEurope response strategy promoting an EU inclusive, gender-sensitive approach to support digital transformation in the country focusing on promoting reforms towards international standards (GDPR on data privacy, EU digital single market, COPERNICUS and GALILEO for e-services)
• Propose list of priority programmes/actions/projects to be addressed by the EU and Member States, through their cooperation instruments (blending, guarantees, grants, etc.) 
• Base conclusions and recommendations on past programme reviews and lessons learnt to the best extent possible.
• Provide a framework of prioritisation and sequencing to proposed actions
• Organise a National Response Strategy Workshop, with the participation of experts from national actors the EU Delegation, Member States and the Technical and Financial Partners of the sector
• Strategy and collect comments and recommendations
• Complete submission of the standard EU templates of Action Document for Digital programme AAP 2022. Identification and Formulation (also propose direct or indirect implementation modalities, maximizing opportunities for joint programming with Member States).