USAID and U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv jointly invest in Conflict Management and Mitigation (CMM) grants, which support Israelis and Palestinians working on issues of common concern. The CMM program is part of a worldwide effort to bring together individuals of different backgrounds from areas of conflict in people-to-people reconciliation activities. These activities provide opportunities to address issues, reconcile differences, and promote greater understanding and mutual trust by working on common goals such as economic development, environment, health, education, sports, music, and information technology. Since the program’s start in 2004, USAID and U.S. Embassy Tel Aviv have invested in 113 CMM grants. 

GRANTS MANAGED BY USAID

Dead Sea and Arava Science Center: The goal of the Water Matters project is to promote cooperation on water management and economic development in the Red Sea-Dead Sea basin for sustainable, improved livelihoods and the reduction of conflict among 230 Palestinians, Israelis, and Jordanians. Eco-Peace Middle East for Environmental Development (2016-2018; $1,200,000): The Good Water Neighbors project empowers more than 1,100 Palestinian, Israeli and Jordanian local leadership, youth and adult residents, particularly women and girls, to advocate for cross-border cooperation and solutions in 11 watershed areas by helping them facilitate the implementation of water, sanitation, and other solutions to solve existing environmental problems.

El Hawakeer: The Almond Agriculture project helps 120 Israeli and Palestinian almond farmers develop and apply research on irrigation and plant protection to increase productivity.

Hope Flowers Foundation for Education Development: The Peace Building via Civil Society Cooperation project uses the shared issue of children with disabilities to promote positive changes in perceptions between 700 Palestinians and Israelis and helps them build personal and professional partnerships.

Kids4Peace: The Interfaith Jerusalem project connects more than 1,000 youth and parents from East and West Jerusalem and neighboring West Bank communities in cross-border programs that foster civic involvement, celebrate the religious diversity of Jerusalem, and encourage key populations to support a pro-peace agenda.

LionHeart: The Women Empowerment for Economic Cooperation project provides leadership training to over 30 Israeli and Palestinian women in the Information and Communication Technologies sector in the West Bank and Israel, enabling their involvement in cross border business activities and empowering them to assume leadership roles within their organizations and communities.

Moona – A Space for Change: With the aim to diminish the social and cultural divide between Arab and Jewish youth, the Co- Lab project provides a meaningful opportunity for over 500 youth in Israel’s Central Galilee region to interact over a shared interest in robotics and quadcopters.

Near East Foundation: The Olive Oil Without Borders III project aims to develop relationships of trust, mutual understanding, and economic cooperation among Jordanians, Israelis and Palestinians. The project targets 1,000 olive producers, mill operators, and olive oil distributors in 37 communities in Israel, the West Bank, and Jordan to expand economic cooperation, build working relationships between business and policy leaders, and develop 30 women-owned businesses through cross-border collaboration between women’s cooperatives.

Palestinian Wastewater Engineers Group: The Green Technologies in Cooperative Date Farming project engages over 520 Israeli and Palestinian date farmers to promote renewable energy and improve water access and availability through wastewater recycling and solar groundwater pumping. The project builds the capacity of an additional 30 farmers to enhance production in the date sector and provides educational exchanges for 45 Israeli and Palestinian students on the use and benefits of solar energy for agriculture in the Jordan and Arava Valley.

Shades LLC: The Shades Negotiation Program, under the academic sponsorship of the Harvard Negotiation Project, is a platform for negotiation and leadership training and practice for 30 promising mid-career women and men from across key international stakeholders based in the Middle East.

Unistream: The Educating Tomorrow’s Leaders Today project brings together 400 Israeli Muslim and Christian Arabs, Jews, Druze and Bedouin teenagers to work towards developing, establishing and managing their own fully functioning startup companies and business ventures while increasing cooperation and mutual understanding.

Catholic Relief Services: The Together for Pediatric Palliative Care project brings together 90 medical professionals from the West Bank, Israel, and Jordan to work on the shared goal of establishing pediatric palliative care programs supporting the dignity and well-being of terminally ill children and their families. This project seeks to build bridges and assist over 2,360 children suffering from cancer by supporting a home-based care program.

Creativity For Peace: The Women Building a Politics of Peace project encourages more equitable participation of 24 women in both Palestinian and Israeli political life, in particular women who focus on cooperation as it relates to humanitarian needs.

Ein Dor Museum: The How Do You Spell VIOLENCE in Hebrew and Arabic project fosters leadership and joint work among 150 Israeli-Jewish and Israeli-Arab youth from six schools in the Galilee that will in turn, reach over 2,000 young students in their schools, in a joint campaign to combat violence, intolerance, and incitement in schools and communities throughout the Galilee.

Hand in Hand Center for Jewish-Arab Education in Israel: The Widening theCircle: From Bilingual Arab-Jewish Schools to Civic Inclusion project establishes the seventh Hand in Hand bilingual school and implements community activities in all seven schools to increase social bonds and address social issues in Jewish-Arab relations in Israel.

Kids4Peace: The Peace Builders Forum project connects 50 Palestinian and Israeli youth via common projects in media, tourism, community outreach, and by training youth to effectively communicate historical and contemporary narratives.

Middle East Entrepreneurs for Tomorrow: The Training Entrepreneurs for Excellence at MEET project provides training for 70-80 excelling Israeli and Palestinian youth between ages 15-18 in advanced technology, entrepreneurship, and leadership. This project also works on establishing networks of mutual trust, understanding, respect, and teamwork.

Palestinian Peace Coalition: The Enriching the Dialogue for Peace project brings together key Palestinian and Israeli opinion leaders and promotes mutual trust. This project’s activities include leadership training for young key opinion leaders, specifically women. The program aims to reach over 625 Palestinians and 540 Israelis for an approximate total of 1,165 beneficiaries.

Peace Players International: The Peace Players Basketball Club project utilizes sports to bridge divides between Palestinians and Israelis. This project trains over 750 youth in leadership and social entrepreneurship skills.

Peres Center for Peace: The B2B project works with 40 companies to encourage cross-border business cooperation, increase trade capacities of the Palestinian food industry, and promote a more trade-enabling environment based on mutual benefit, awareness, and trust.

Search for Common Ground: The Regional Cooperative Health Initiative project increases cooperation among 24 public health officials and 60 technicians on common health concerns for Israeli, Palestinian, and Jordanian societies on biosafety and biosecurity that places all three populations at risk from an accidental or intentional hazardous biological outbreak.

Appleseeds Academy: The Net @Community Connectors project provides Information and Communications Technology (ICT) training to 140 youth from mixed cities within Israel where participants will receive 640 hours of ICT and leadership training. [Sub-Award: Cisco Systems, Inc.]

Near East Foundation: The Olive Oil Without Borders project continues to strengthen linkages between Israeli and Palestinian olive industry leaders and expands the already established project to new communities and regions. This project works with 1,500 olive farmers in 54 communities in the West Bank and Israel (42 Palestinian and 16 Israeli) to enhance economic cooperation between farmers, mill owners, and distributors through cross-border training, workshops, and joint business initiatives. [Sub-Award: Palestinian Center for Agricultural Research and Development and Peres Center for Peace]

Parents Circle-Families Forum: The Narratives for Change project focuses on bringing the Parallel Narrative Experience methodology to new target groups and building the capacity of more than 180 participants. Through 120 events including training sessions and dialogue encounters, the project aims for a gradual humanization of each other to foster changes in attitudes between Israelis and Palestinians by breaking down the psychological barriers between the two groups and by providing a platform to communicate. [Sub-Award: Generation for Peace]

Peres Center for Peace: The Twinned Peace Sport Schools Program is a cross-border people-to-people peacebuilding project that enables 240 Palestinian and Israeli girls to meet and play soccer and learn about each other’s culture. [Sub-Award: Organization for the Advancement of Women’s Sport in Kiryat Gat and Palestine Center for Conflict Resolution and the Development of Youth Capabilities]

Tsofen: This project integrates 350 Israeli Arab citizens in Israeli technology companies and establishes three to four regional high-tech center hubs promoting increased employment and equality of women in high-tech industries.

Hagar-Jewish-Arab Education for Equality: The Education for All: Expanding Integrated Education in Israel’s Negev project expands its already established bilingual integrated school in Beer Sheva to reach additional Negev residents and students. This project brings together about 800 individuals of different backgrounds to learn each other’s language and culture to promote greater understanding, tolerance, and respect in school.
 

GRANTS MANAGED BY U.S. EMBASSY TEL AVIV

Adva Center: The Regional Jewish-Arab Women's Councils for the Promotion of Gender Equality aims to address a number of issues and raise awareness of shared common goals and civic interests that have a direct effect on the lives, status, political and economic power of women in the targeted communities and in the region as a whole. The project will establish two regional councils of 60 Arab and Jewish women, graduates of an earlier project of Adva Center, that focus on the promotion of gender quality in local government.

The Israel Women Network: The Jewish and Arab Moms @Work Breaking the Barriers Locally and Nationally project builds on an ongoing leadership development program of Jewish and Arab women, leveraging the experienced, skilled and committed women leaders to work with a new cohort of 80 Jewish and Arab women through intensive and advanced leadership training.

Leo Baeck Education Center: The Arab-Jewish Joint Community through Youth and Family Leadership project aims to expand the traditional existing Arab-Jewish Summer Camp (ages 6-11) by building an active Arab-Jewish community of camp families (for all ages) through bi-monthly workshops, activities and "dual narrative" field trips, and meetings with key players with the goal of building an active joint community of 50 Arab and 50 Jewish participants in the 2016 summer camp.

Merchavim: The Arab Teacher Integration program is a joint initiative with the Israeli Ministry of Education aiming to place 150 Israeli Arab teachers in Jewish schools to teach English, math, and science in order to give Jewish children more substantive encounters with Arab citizens.

Citizen Accord Forum: The Ultra-Orthodox and Arabs Work Together to Create a Shared Civic Agenda project brings together 45 leaders to work on a shared civic agenda and implement activities related to social issues of common concern in their communities.

SHIN: The Israeli Movement for the Equal Representation of Women: The Young Women’s Parliament project brings together 150 high school female students of different religious background from ten communities to work on issues of common concern, build bridges, learn advocacy skills, and improve leadership skills enabling the participants to work on conflict resolution issues.