The Prime Minister’s proposal to allocate $168 million (660m NIS) for minority communities in Israel in 2015 was approved by the government on Sunday, December 21st. The financial package will benefit the country’s 1.7 million Arabs with projects targeting transportation, economic growth, and tourism.
This plan will be coordinated and implemented by the Authority for Economic Development of the Minorities Sector within the Prime Minister’s office along with the ministries of Finance, Infrastructure, Transportation and Road Safety, Public Security, Tourism, Negev and Galilee Development, Construction, Interior, Education and Economy.
Following are the main points of the plan:
Increasing transport accessibility via investments
More than half of the allocated budget for minority communities is to be spent on improving transportation infrastructure. Some NIS 300 million is to be spent on upgrading intercity and intra-city roads in Arab localities. Additionally, NIS 120 million ($30 million) is to go toward subsidies for public transportation, the completion of public transportation infrastructure and improving accessibility of information in Arabic.
Economic development
NIS 40 million ($10 million) of the funding package will be used to advance existing plans for the development of industrial zones in minority communities and another NIS 8 million ($2 million) will be put into training programs for in-demand professions. An additional NIS 100M will go towards improving water and sewage infrastructures, around NIS 70M will address internal security issues.
Tourist infrastructure development
The plan will also address tourism infrastructure with a particular focus on the Old City of Nazareth, Israel’s largest Arab town, the tourist sites of which are a global historic and religious center of Christian pilgrimage.
In light of the previous five-year plan, the Prime Minister’s office communicated in this press release that, “the plan had positive results in fields such as public transportation, employment, personal security and planning, and helped to instill in government ministries the understanding that the minorities sector is a gigantic growth engine.” The new plan also includes funding for sports and culture facilities in Arab localities, support for entrepreneurship, social services and a number of additional areas.The government resolution also addresses the weakness of Arab localities and its administrative staff, as well as establishes a number of “planning committees” tasked to develop long term governmental policies.
Read more in The Times of Israel, here.
Read the Prime Minister’s press release, here.
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