The Association of Palestinian Local Authorities "APLA", headed by its President, Abdelkarim Al-Zubeidi conducted a meeting with His Excellency, Minister of Local Governance, Eng. Majdi Al-Saleh, at the Ministry in Ramallah. The meeting was attended by the members of APLA's Executive Committee, the Deputy Minister of Local Governance, Dr. Tawfiq Al-Bodairi, and APLA's Executive Director, Eng. Abdallah Anati, to discuss a set of challenges faced by local authorities, enhancing their working mechanism, as well as finding and identifying strategic priorities that work should be consolidated around in order to enhance the role of local authorities in serving their citizens.

His Excellency, Minister of Local Government, Eng. Al-Saleh emphasized the importance of continuing to work with APLA, especially on priority issues for the work of local authorities in order to provide the appropriate and responsive environment to the needs of local authorities and the requirements of development, through developing, amending, reviewing and updating the various and different laws, policies and systems related to the local governance sector.

In return, APLA's President affirmed the importance of enhancing cooperation and working mechanisms with the Ministry in order to mobilize efforts and enhance joint cooperation aiming to support the roles of local authorities by responding to their urgent needs with the aim of developing the services provided to citizens.

The Executive Committee discussed with the Ministry several issues during the meeting, including the property tax, and the dues of local authorities, income tax, the fees of professional licenses, and municipal police, in addition to having a dialogue with the National Union of Local Governments Staff, and issues of partnership with the private sector and engineering supervision and control at municipalities.

Furthermore, APLA agree with the Ministry to work jointly on developing the strategy of the local governance sector to guarantee listing the priorities of local authorities in the sectoral plan of local governance.