Reverse Linkage

63 DEVELOPMENT THROUGH SOUTH-SOUTH COOPERATION O ver the past decade, the Palestinian state has taken major steps towards establishing itself as a member of the international community, worthy of high consideration. Internally, the Palestinians have put together the state institutions and government agencies necessary to comprise the structural core of a contem- porary state. In recent years, Palestinian diplomacy has launched a bid to internationalise the State of Palestine, mainly by initiating a bid for statehood at the United Nations and acceding to many international treaties and organizations that define the global political structure. In 2016, a presidential decree launched a far-reaching public diplomacy tool: The Palestinian International Cooperation Agency (PICA). The establishment of this agency is an expression of gratitude for the international support that the State of Palestine has received throughout the years, and so PICA is creating a new culture of international cooperation in Palestine. It is a state under military occupation, suffer- ing abnormal hardships, relying heavily on international support, yet ambitious and outward looking. Guided by the concept Solidarity through Development, PICA, with its development partners, seeks to share contri- butions, transfer knowledge and supply development aid and technical assistance to developing countries with the aim of promoting South-South Cooperation (SSC) through various modalities including Reverse Linkage. PICA relies on a rich Palestinian know-how, located locally and in the diaspora, to match fellow countries’ needs with Palestinian capacities and to implement bilateral, trilateral, and multilateral SSC programmes in the fields of health, agriculture, education, renewable energy, peacebuilding and rule of law, information technology, civic engagement and volunteerism. Palestinian expertise is transferred and employed to the benefit of other countries in need where they provide a huge contribution to SSC. Since it was established, PICA has led an important role in developing and promoting SSC as a driver to sustainable development and the agenda of 2030. One of the agency’s most important fields of work is health – it sees this field as essential in the raising of developmental standards around the globe in sectors such as medicine, nutrition, first aid, nursing, medical sciences, health management, public health provision and healthcare development. In August 2017, prompted by an invitation from the Children’s Hospital and Institute of Child Health (CHICH) in Lahore, PICA dispatched a team, specialised in children’s orthopaedic spinal cord surgery, to Pakistan, led by the head of its orthopaedic surgery programme who had developed a newmechanism in this field. As well as conducting surgeries and sharing expertise with Pakistani medical staff, they led efforts and approached partners to establish paediatric spine services at CHICH, the country’s largest children’s hospital. On the day of the programme inauguration, the first ever scoliosis surgery took place in a collaborative effort between PICA and the Orthopaedic Association from the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) countries as well as the Pakistan Orthopaedic Association. The Palestinian medical team was able to perform poste- rior instrumentation and fusion surgeries for three patients with adolescent idiopathic scoliosis, a medical condition with no known cause but that causes the spine to curve sideways. The patients’ parents, especially their mothers, were very enthusiastic and keen to have the surgery performed for the girls. All three patients had very poor socio-economic back- grounds and therefore were unable to benefit from surgery at private sector hospitals. All patients had uneventful recover- ies and were discharged on their fifth day, post-surgery. The Dean of CHICH subsequently announced his willingness to adopt the project and establish a permanent scoliosis service at the hospital. The Palestinian medical team is scheduled to return to Pakistan at least four times per year, to continue the collaborative work on this valuable project. On the request of the King Faisal Hospital, Kigali, Rwanda, a Palestinian medical team specialising in orthopaedic spinal cord surgery was dispatched in early September 2017 to perform a mission of similar character to that of the Pakistan assignment. The Palestinian medical PICA – a mechanism to share contributions, promote solidarity through development, and foster SSC Dima AlArqan; Jalal Abukhater, Palestinian International Cooperation Agency