3. Habasch, R. The Evolving Relationship between the Union of Palestinian Medical Relief Committees and the Palestinian Authority. The Rosemarie Rogers Working Paper Series: Working Paper # 6, 1999: 49p.

This study investigates the factors that enabled the UPMRC to develop and maintain cooperative relationship with the PA and the means and strategies that account for the success of the UPRMC. The study begins by describing the authoritarian nature of the PA, especially with regard to its treatment of the NGO sector. The next section provides an outline of the health situation in the Occupied Territories and focuses on the four health care providers in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip. This part ends by evaluating the health sector. Next, the study explains how the UPMRC’s emergence is part of a wider movement for health and social reform. This part then deals with the means the UPMRC has adopted to create and sustain its grassroots ties. Further, this section discusses the horizontal linkages the UPMRC has established with NGOs in the health and other sectors. Through these horizontal linkages, the UPMRC has not only promoted its vision of health care, but has acted as a lobby group for a democratic political order. In this function it has assumed a leading role in the Palestinian NGO network, PNGO, which aims to curb the authoritarian traits of the PA. This part also deals with the means the UPMRC has adopted to further its agenda on a national level. It discusses the nature of the vertical linkages the UPMRC has established with the PA to achieve its goals. The final part of this study summarizes the major findings and highlights the factors that have aided the UPRMC in building a cooperative relationship with ministries of the PA.