It doesn t determine things by any means, but it influences policy decisions and therefore policy outcomes, and that s very rewarding. Ajluni gets his information from multilateral institutions like the World Bank and from Palestinian sources, particularly the Palestine Central Bureau of Statistics. The PCBS is the most important source, says Ajluni. They re engaged in fairly comprehensive field surveys. Of course, they re an institution in formation just like everything else here, but they ve got some pretty good people there and their work has been central to what I do.
Information comes at a cost, though.
You have to go around and knock on doors and call people and visit and do all sorts of things. The Israelis have apparently stopped gathering economic data in the systematic way they did in the past. As its title indicates, the office coordinates U.N. work in Gaza and the West Bank, but also helps coordinate other donor work and, when asked, may intervene in political disputes between Israel and the Palestinian Authority. The site gets financial support from the World Bank. The PDIN is a good central location for information on development aid and reconstruction in the West Bank and Gaza.