An-Najah National University 

Faculty of Graduate Studies  

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Towards E-Municipality in the Palestinian Territories 

Qalqilia Municipality as a Case Study 

 

 

 

By 

Ahmad Abdel Mon’em M. AL Nammourh 

 

 

Supervisor 

Dr. Ali Abdelhamid 

 

 

 
This Thesis is Submitted in Partial Fulfillment of the Requirements for 

the Degree of Master of Engineering Management, Faculty of Graduate 

Studies, An-Najah National University, Nablus, Palestine. 

2011



ii 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Towards E-Municipality in the Palestinian Territories 

Qalqilia Municipality as a Case Study 

 

 

 

 

By 

Ahmad Abdel Mon’em M. AL Nammourh 

 

 

 

 

This thesis was defended successfully on …………., and approved by: 

Committee members                                                                   Signature 

1. Dr. Ali Abdelhamid                                                                 …...….…. 

2. Dr. Samer Raddad                                                                   …….……. 

3. Dr. Khitam Shraim                                                                  …….……. 



iii 

DEDICATION 

������ 

��	
�� �
��� ��� �  ���������� ������ ...  

������ ���������������������	�  

� ������� �  ���  !����� ��� 
��...  

"������ ���������� �  

������ !�#��� $�%��� "	��� ���  !����� " &
 �...  

"	�	��� ��%�� 

������� ������� ��...  

���%� ��'
�	 ��
(�  

� )�� ������ ���%� ���*��� �  ��� ...  

������ ����+�� ����+�  

����� ���  ,����-��
��... 

 ���+��#) ��  �'�� �-��
�� 
 

����������� .������� �/���������������0�	  



iv 

ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

This research would not have been possible without the kindly support of 

many people. I wish to express my gratitude to my supervisor, Dr. Ali 

Abedhamid who was abundantly helpful and offered invaluable assistance, 

support and guidance. Deepest gratitude is also due to the members of the 

supervisory committee, without their knowledge and assistance this study 

would not have been successful. 

Special thanks to Qalqilia municipality, to the municipal council especially 

the Mayer Mr. Samir Dawabsha, and to my partners of employees especially 

Mr. Esa Al Faris and Mr. Said khatter for their invaluable assistance. I wish 

also to express my gratitude to the municipality of Nablus, Hebron, Jericho, 

and Dura for all support and valuable information.  Not forgetting to my best 

friends who always been there. 

I wishes to express my love and gratitude to my beloved family; for their 

understanding and endless love, through the duration of my studies. And I 

would like to extend my sincere appreciation to Dr. Bahjat Qazaz who is 

sincerely appreciated for his many significant suggestions and advices. I’m 

most grateful for his generosity. 

Finally, I extended my thanks to An Najah National University, especially 

faculty of graduate studies.  



v 

DECLARATION 

���1� 

��� ����	
 ����� 
��� �	���	
 ��	
 ���� �
���	
:  

Towards E-Municipality in the Palestinian Territories 

 Qalqilia Municipality as a Case Study 

"����'
(�� �2���� �� "�����
�� "��
	 ��� – "�'��� "���
 "�
��
1 "��
	 

 

��� ��� �� �����
 ���  �!" �	���	
 ���# �" $��� %�&' ()�*	
 +��,���� �� -���.
 ��� ��	# 

��,�� (��� �
ٕ� �!" �	���	
 (�00 �� %� +1' �&�� 
	 
��� �� ��� ���	 �'�� 2�	 �� ���  �� 

�,�� 3�	 ��� ���4� ������� �� ��,�� 3�*�.  

Declaration 

The work provided in this thesis, unless otherwise referenced, is the 

researcher's own work, and has not been submitted elsewhere for any other 

degree or qualification. 

Student's name: اسم الطالب:                                                                             

Signature:                                                                                             التوقيع:  

Date:                                                                                                      خالتاري:  



vi 

TABLE OF CONTENTS 

DEDICATION ................................................................................................ iii 

ACKNOWLEDGMENT .................................................................................. iv 

DECLARATION ............................................................................................... v 

TABLE OF CONTENTS ................................................................................. vi 

LIST OF TABLES ............................................................................................ x 

LIST OF FIGURES .......................................................................................... xi 

ABSTRACT .................................................................................................. xiii 

1.1 Introduction .......................................................................................... 2 

1.2 Research problem ................................................................................. 3 

1.3 Research justification and significance ................................................ 4 

1.4 Research objectives .............................................................................. 5 

1.5 Area of study ........................................................................................ 6 

1.6 Research plan........................................................................................ 7 

1.7 Research limitations ........................................................................... 11 

1.8 Organization of the thesis ................................................................... 11 

1.9 Research terminologies ...................................................................... 12 

2.1 Introduction ........................................................................................ 17 

2.2 Local governments ............................................................................. 17 

2.3 Municipalities ..................................................................................... 19 

2.3.1 The municipalities’ concept ......................................................... 20 

2.3.2 General municipalities’ functions and responsibilities ................ 21 

2.4 Traditional municipality ..................................................................... 24 

2.4.1 Characteristics of traditional municipality ................................... 24 

2.5 Electronic municipality ...................................................................... 29 

2.5.1 Definition and philosophy ........................................................... 29 

CHAPTER ONE .............................................................................................. 1 

INTRODUCTION ........................................................................................... 1 

CHAPTER TWO ........................................................................................... 16 

CONCEPTUAL AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND ...................... 16 



vii 

2.5.2 Key dimensions and stockholders of electronic municipality ..... 31 

2.5.3 General stages of electronic municipality .................................... 35 

2.5.4 Main challenges of e-municipality .............................................. 40 

2.6 Electronic municipality as an alternative for traditional municipality.

 43 

2.7 Previous studies .................................................................................. 44 

3.1 Introduction ........................................................................................ 48 

3.2 History of local government in Palestine ........................................... 48 

3.2.1 Local government before the period of the PNA ........................ 49 

3.2.2 Local government during the period of the PNA ........................ 49 

3.3 The reality and classifications of the municipalities in the PT .......... 51 

3.4 The distribution of the of the municipalities in the PT ...................... 53 

3.5 Qalqilia municipality .......................................................................... 56 

3.5.1 Qalqilia municipality history ....................................................... 56 

3.5.2 Qalqilia municipality’ structure ................................................... 57 

3.5.3 Qalqilia municipality services ..................................................... 64 

3.5.4 Qalqilia municipality characteristics ........................................... 67 

4.1 Introduction ........................................................................................ 78 

4.2 Overview ............................................................................................ 78 

4.3 Research questions ............................................................................. 80 

4.4 Data collection strategies .................................................................... 81 

4.4.2 Literature review .......................................................................... 82 

4.4.3 Observation and experience ......................................................... 83 

4.4.4 Case Study ................................................................................... 83 

4.5 Data management tools ...................................................................... 89 

4.6 Data analysis strategies ...................................................................... 92 

4.6.1 Quantitative and qualitative analysis ........................................... 92 

CHAPTER THREE ....................................................................................... 47 

OVERVIEW OF QALQILIA MUNICIPALITY ....................................... 47 

CHAPTER FOUR ......................................................................................... 77 

RESEARCH DESIGN AND METHODOLOGY ....................................... 77 



viii 

4.6.2 Combining data analysis techniques ............................................ 96 

4.7 Validity and Reliability ...................................................................... 97 

5.1 Introduction ...................................................................................... 100 

5.2 Critical factors of e-municipality ..................................................... 100 

5.2.2 Internal critical factors ............................................................... 103 

5.2.3 External critical factors .............................................................. 107 

5.3 Barriers to e-municipality ................................................................. 109 

5.4 Qalqilia municipality case study results ........................................... 111 

5.4.1 Internal environment results ...................................................... 112 

5.4.2 External environment results ..................................................... 122 

5.5 Qalqilia municipality case study description ................................... 128 

5.5.1 The final results of internal and external environments ............ 128 

5.5.2 The internal environment description ........................................ 131 

5.5.3 The external environment description ....................................... 132 

5.5.4 Qalqilia municipality status ....................................................... 133 

6.1 Introduction ...................................................................................... 138 

6.2 The  model of e-municipality requirements and critical issues ........ 138 

6.2.1 The model of e-municipality requirements ................................ 139 

6.2.2 Critical issues for e-municipality adoption. ............................... 145 

7.1 Introduction ...................................................................................... 150 

7.2 Conclusions ...................................................................................... 150 

7.3 Recommendations ............................................................................ 152 

REFERENCES .............................................................................................. 154 

CHAPTER FIVE ........................................................................................... 99 

ANALYSIS CRITICAL FACTORS OF E-MUNICIPALITY 

ADOPTION .................................................................................................... 99 

CHAPTER SIX ............................................................................................ 137 

PROPOSED MODEL OF E-MUNICIPALITY REQUIREMENTS ..... 137 

CHAPTER SEVEN ..................................................................................... 149 

CONCLUSIONS AND RECOMMENDATIONS .................................... 149 



ix 

APPENDIX ................................................................................................... 160 

APPENDIX - A ............................................................................................. 160 

APPENDIX - B ............................................................................................. 166 

APPENDIX - C ............................................................................................. 169 

  ب ..............................................................................................................     الملخص

  



x 

LIST OF TABLES 

Table  2-1: challenges in implementing e-municipality through each stage. ... 39 

Table  3-1: statistics information of local governments in the PT ................... 54 

Table  3-2: utilities and infrastructure services. ............................................... 65 

Table  3-3: health and environment services. ................................................... 65 

Table  4-1: Questionnaire sections of Qalqilia municipality's team. ............... 90 

Table  4-2: Questionnaire sections of Qalqilia municipality's citizens. ........... 91 

Table  5-1: main internal barriers. .................................................................. 111 

Table  5-2: main external barriers. ................................................................. 111 

Table  5-3: the results of internal critical factors and the related indicators. . 116 

Table  5-4: average score for each internal barrier and for all internal barriers.

 ....................................................................................................................... 121 

Table  5-5: the results of external critical factors and the related indicators. 125 

Table  5-6: average score for each external barrier and for all internal barriers.

 ....................................................................................................................... 127 

Table  5-7: adjustment process for the results of internal environment. ........ 130 

Table  5-8: adjustment process for the results of external environment. ....... 130 



xi 

LIST OF FIGURES 

Figure  1-1: map of Qalqilia city. ....................................................................... 9 

Figure  1-2: map of Qalqilia's lands over the various stages of history. .......... 10 

Figure  2-1: the philosophy of communication within e-municipality. ........... 31 

Figure  2-2: basic dimensions of electronic municipality. ............................... 34 

Figure  2-3: basic e-municipality relations. ...................................................... 35 

Figure  2-4: the five proposed stages toward e-municipality. .......................... 36 

Figure  2-5: proposed e-adoption model .......................................................... 46 

Figure  3-1: map of Palestinian Territories. ..................................................... 51 

Figure  3-2: map of local government geographic distribution over the West 

Bank. ................................................................................................................ 55 

Figure  3-3: Qalqilia municipality’s structure. ................................................. 59 

Figure  3-4: Qalqilia’ citizens satisfaction about the health services (2008). .. 69 

Figure  3-5: Qalqilia’ citizens satisfaction about the health services (2011). .. 69 

Figure  3-6: zoning plan which is issued by Qalailia municipality. ................. 72 

Figure  3-7: the workload of a citizen in getting a ZPF. .................................. 73 

Figure  3-8: Qalqilia’s electric network (L.V) prepared in AutoCAD software.

 ......................................................................................................................... 76 

Figure  4-1: research database structure ........................................................... 82 

Figure  4-2: decision tree .................................................................................. 96 

Figure  5-1: Qalqilia municipality's framework. ............................................ 102 

Figure  5-2: the model of internal critical factors. .......................................... 103 

Figure  5-3: the evaluation model of internal critical factors. ........................ 104 

Figure  5-4: the model of external critical factors. ......................................... 107 

Figure  5-5: the evaluation model of external critical factors. ....................... 108 

Figure  5-6: survey participants: distribution according to age range. ........... 114 

Figure  5-7: survey participants: distribution according to occupation. ......... 114 

Figure  5-8: survey participants: distribution according to work experience. 114 



xii 

Figure  5-9: survey participants: distribution according to decision role. ...... 114 

Figure  5-10: acceptance percentage of internal critical factors..................... 115 

Figure  5-11: the results of related indicators for each internal critical factor.

 ....................................................................................................................... 118 

Figure  5-12: the results of related indicators for each internal critical factor.

 ....................................................................................................................... 119 

Figure  5-13: the results of internal barriers. .................................................. 120 

Figure  5-14: survey participants: distribution according to education level. 123 

Figure  5-15: survey participants: distribution according to age range. ......... 123 

Figure  5-16: survey participants: distribution according to employment. .... 123 

Figure  5-17: survey participants: distribution according to occupation 

position. ......................................................................................................... 123 

Figure  5-18: the result of external critical factors. ........................................ 125 

Figure  5-19: the results of related indicators for each external critical factor.

 ....................................................................................................................... 126 

Figure  5-20: the results of external barriers. ................................................. 127 

Figure  5-21: the internal environment strengths with comparing to weakness.

 ....................................................................................................................... 132 

Figure  5-22: the external environment opportunities with comparing to 

threats. ............................................................................................................ 133 

Figure  5-23: evaluation results of Qalqilia municipality’ environments. ..... 134 

Figure  5-24: evaluation matrix of a municipality status. .............................. 135 

Figure  6-1: proposed model of e-municipality requirements. ....................... 140 



xiii 

Towards E-Municipality in the Palestinian Territories 

Qalqilia Municipality as a Case Study 

By 

Ahmad Abdel Mon’em M. AL Nammourh 

Supervisor 

Dr. Ali Abdelhamid 

ABSTRACT 

The increase in demand for services and its association with the increase of 

population in the Palestinian Territories as well as the limited financial 

resources impacted negatively on the performance of Palestinian 

municipalities. Also, the unstable political situation and the procedures of the 

continuous Israeli occupation and control over resources and land, and 

isolation of localities from one another and from the service centers weakened 

the ability of these municipalities to be bound by their responsibilities in the 

performance of their services and the low level of effectiveness and efficiency 

they have, especially in light of the traditional system used in the management 

of municipalities in the Palestinian Territories. 

This study aimed to diagnose the state of municipalities in the Palestinian 

Territories and readiness to adopt an electronic municipal system depending 

on various technical elements such as information and communication 

systems, data management, and management activities and simulation 

processes, and other non-technical elements, such as leadership and 

management models, human capacity, democracy, justice, transparency, and 

integrated development planning , etc., and then infer the gap between the 

current and future situation represented in the e-municipality and propose a 



xiv 

model of the ruling elements (technical and non-technical) to deal with 

expected developments, as well as take into account the privacy of political 

and demographic in the Palestinian Territories, and contribute to the access to 

the e-municipality. 

Parallel with the literature review on e-municipality, this study relied on 

descriptive, analytical and deductive approaches in dealing with the Qalqilya 

Municipality as a case study, where the characteristics of Qalqilya 

Municipality were studied and compared with those of the traditional 

municipality, based on measuring the degree of satisfaction the citizen for 

some services, as well as the study and analysis of some departments of the 

municipality in terms of performance and techniques used to deduce the 

characteristics of the municipality through the qualitative analysis. Also, the 

internal environment of the municipality (all components of the municipality) 

as well as the external environment related to citizen and the community were 

measured and evaluated based on the ruling elements, as well as the potential 

obstacles and challenges from the perspective of the municipality and the 

local community through the quantitative analysis. In addition, the qualitative 

and quantitative analyses have been linked to achieve the objectives of the 

study. 

The results of the study through Qalqilya Municipality (as a case study of 

municipalities in the Palestinian territories) showed to have a limited 

readiness to adopt e-municipality (23.5%) despite the high percentage of 

chances of success associated with the readiness of the external environment 



xv 

(68.5%). The results associated with the challenges from the perspective of 

the municipality as well as the citizen showed the presence of a maximum 

priority to deal with laws and regulations related to e-services and the 

unstable political situation in the Palestinian territories besides the many other 

challenges. 

The study suggested a model of the basic requirements for the success of the 

adoption of e-municipality in the Palestinian territories, which includes 

several elements that overcome all challenges and obstacles. The study added 

to that model a number of important issues related to e-municipality such as 

laws and regulations, the cultural level and awareness in the community, 

community participation, safety, varying technical capabilities, which the 

municipalities should taken into account for the success of the adoption of e-

municipality, and those issues are complementary of the proposed model. 

 



1 

CHAPTER ONE 

INTRODUCTION 

  



2 

CHAPTER ONE  

INTRODUCTION 

1.1 Introduction 

E- municipality initiatives versus traditional municipality are receiving 

considerable attention and became more interested especially in the regions 

that are new covenant in the institution-building and democracy practices such 

as the Palestine Territories (PT) (World Bank, 2002). 

The mission of a municipality is to provide the services necessary to ensure 

the health, safety, and welfare of its residents. This mission is met through the 

daily operations of many departments under the management of the 

municipality's administrative officer and the policy direction of the elected 

officials. The municipal officials attempt to increase the quality of managing 

the municipality's internal and external environments and achieving the 

effectiveness and efficiency in services delivery to its citizens and 

stakeholders through creating suitable work environments, and by applying an 

advanced technologies based on Information and Communication 

Technologies (ICT), where all are compatible with context of and according to 

concepts of electronic approaches versus traditional approaches (ESRI, 2003). 

An interoperability infrastructure; technical and non-technical infrastructure is 

at the heart of e-municipality. The ability by which the different applications 

can talk and cooperate with each other is known as interoperability. This 

interoperability infrastructure would make the interaction between 



3 

municipality and citizens (M2C), municipality and business enterprises 

(M2B), and internal relationships (M2M) more friendly, convenient, 

transparent, and inexpensive (World Bank, 2002). 

Due to the lack of interoperability, traditional municipalities face serious 

problems. These are mainly poor quality and high cost of services, and low 

economical revenues. E-municipality has been proposed for solving these 

problems (Akinci, 2004). 

This thesis is dealing with special traditional systems and critical political 

situations of the municipalities in the PT. The traditional systems, leadership 

and management, democracy and transparency, culture, economic, electronic 

literate and many several challenges will be investigated to develop a model 

of requirements that fit the special circumstances of the municipalities in the 

PT, and increase the chances of success of e-municipality adoption. 

1.2 Research problem 

The municipalities in the PT adopted traditional systems that affect the quality 

of services management and delivery. This traditional system summarized as 

traditional municipality which also leads to several challenges such as: 

declining revenues, high costs of services production and delivery, poor 

quality of services, lack of auto-control mechanisms, and lack of transparency, 

Where the traditional municipalities in the PT have poor standards of 

information, administration and process, as well as the insufficient and 

improper use of ICT. 



4 

The municipalities in the PT work under special circumstances resulted from 

the Israel occupation and its negative consequences on municipalities’ 

resources and roles (e.g. lands, water, electricity, geographic separation, and 

authority and control) with increase the demand on the services resulted from 

population growth highlight the insufficiency of traditional municipality and 

its challenges. 

This promotes to initiate advanced and modern systems as e-municipality 

versus traditional municipality taking into consideration the special 

circumstances of the municipalities in the PT and their context, where the 

success in e-municipality adoption in the PT will deal successfully with those 

challenges. 

1.3 Research justification and significance 

The justification for the research is based on the following points: 

1. The critical role and responsibilities of the municipalities in the PT in 

services delivery with critical situation of occupation procedures, also in 

most cases the challenge of separation from the service center promote to 

adopt suitable systems. 

2. The increase in population and acceleration demand on service make the 

traditional municipalities less effectiveness and efficiency. 

3. The needs to deals with some challenges as: limited resources, declining 

revenues, high costs of services production and delivery, poor quality of 

services, slow pace of activities, and some illegal behaviors of traditional 

municipalities. 



5 

The significance of this research is to add the knowledge, the literature, 

and methodologies to the fields of e-municipality through: 

1. Focusing on the internal and external environments of the municipalities 

in the PT for improving and developing the system of service delivery 

through e-municipality adoption.  

2. Focusing on non-technical issues and their importance beside the 

technical issues as foundation toward e-municipality adoption.  

3. Proposing a methodology for evaluating the municipalities’ readiness 

toward e-municipality adoption. 

4. Assistant in enhancing the relation between the municipalities in the PT 

and their citizens by the means of trust, participation, transparency, justice 

and equity …etc. 

5. Increasing the e-literate of social community and focusing on the most 

challenges to e-municipality as digital divide. 

6. Finally, the sources about e-municipality are limited; therefore this 

research adds a practical and professional resource about the e-municipality, 

and will be the first research about the e-municipality in the PT. 

1.4 Research objectives 

The major objective of this study is; determining the best e-municipality 

approach through identifying the key requirements for the adoption of the 

system compatible with the nature of local governments and citizens in the 

PT. The model of e-municipality requirements will clarify the critical success 

factors (technical and non technical) that will be vital to transfer the system 



6 

from traditional to electronic. In particular, the study aims at achieving the 

following objectives: 

1. Analyzing the current situation of the municipalities in the PT according 

to their characteristics and readiness toward e-municipality adoption. 

2. Proposing a model of e-municipality requirements to the municipalities in 

the PT.  

1.5 Area of study 

The research results cover the municipalities in the PT. Qalqilia municipality 

taken as the case study; where the researcher is being employed in Qalqilia 

municipality and has solid knowledge and experience about the context of the 

municipalities in the PT especially in the system of service delivery.  

In addition to the  researcher’s experience, the selection of the study area is 

considerable according to the importance of Qalqilia municipality as one of 

the major municipalities in the PT (Applied Research Institute- Jerusalem 

(ARIJ), 2010). 

Qalqilia's city with population of 47,000 people is the largest town in the 

governorate of Qalqilia which has a population about 92,000 people living in 

34 villages, so that in early 1996, Qalqilya city became the center of Qalqilya 

province followed by those 34 towns, villages and manor gathered (Jalood & 

Hafes, 2009). 

The city location and the heavy density added to the critical situation, Qalqilia 

is located in the northeastern of the West Bank, the distance to coast of 



7 

Mediterranean Sea is too close which is around (14 Km). This geographical 

situation makes Qalqilia more distinctive comparing with the other cities in 

the West Bank. Qalqilia is about 32 Km far away from Nablus and around 75 

Km far away from Jerusalem. Under restrict and occupation acts, Qalqilia 

became the smallest city which has just about 4000 Don which generates the 

highest capacity arriving to 10 thousand per one km2 (Jalood & Hafes, 2009). 

Figure  1-1 explores map of Qalqilia city. 

By the Israel occupation in 1948 Qalqilia was severed with the western part, 

including 80% of its land, captured for establishing the “state of Israel”. Since 

1967 Israel has confiscated more of Qalqilia lands by force and surrounded it 

with Jewish settlements, and walls and fences built on ancient orchards and 

farmlands worked by its families for generation after generation (Jalood & 

Hafes, 2009). Figure  1-2 explores the Qalqilia's lands over the various stages 

of history. 

1.6 Research plan 

The above mentioned objectives are achieved through the flowing steps: 

1. Studying the concepts of e-municipality and reviewing the relevant 

literatures. 

2. Analyzing the structure and components of Qalqilia municipality 

environments. 

3. Analyzing and describing the characteristics of Qalqilia municipality with 

comparing to traditional and e-municipality concepts. 



8 

4. Proposing models of critical success factors according to e-municipality 

concepts, and analyzing those proposed models to evaluate and measure the 

acceptance percentage of those critical factors within Qalqilia municipality’s 

environments through proposing evaluation models. 

5. Describing the status of Qalqilia municipality according to internal and 

external environments results. 

6. Proposing a model of requirements for successful adoption of e-

municipality in Qalqilia municipality which will be compatible to the 

municipalities in the PT.  



9 

 

  

Figure  1-1: map of Qalqilia city. 



10 

 

 

Figure  1-2: map of Qalqilia's lands over the various stages of history. 



11 

1.7 Research limitations 

Through the research phases, the researcher faced a number of limitations, 

including: 

1. Lake of studies and experiences on e-municipality, particularly in the PT. 

2. The inability to include the municipalities in Gaza Strip within the 

analysis phase due to the current political constraints. 

3. Limitations related to the general understand and awareness of the 

community about e- municipality. 

1.8 Organization of the thesis 

Based on the above plan, this thesis is divided into seven chapters. The first 

chapter entitled “Introduction” and includes the introductory. The second 

chapter “Conceptual and Theoretical Background” includes overview about 

the local governments and municipalities, and focused on traditional 

municipality versus e-municipality concepts and characteristics. The third 

chapter “Overview of Qalqilia Municipality” includes overview about the 

history of local governments before and within the period of Palestinian 

National Authority (PNA), and gives information about the municipalities’ 

classifications and distributions in the PT, this chapter also concerns with 

Qalqilia municipality as case study. The fourth chapter entitled “Research 

Design and Methodology”. This chapter displays the research approach and 

methodology which applied through the research phases. The fifth chapter 

entitled “Analysis Critical Factors of E-Municipality Adoption”. This chapter 



12 

displays the critical factors of and barriers or challenges to e-municipality 

adoption, and presents the internal and external environments results. This 

chapter also explains Qalqilia municipality status according to e-municipality 

concepts. The sixth chapter entitled “Proposed Model of E-Municipality 

Requirements” presented the model of e-municipality requirements and 

overview the important issues toward successful adoption of e-municipality in 

the PT and in Qalqilia particularly. The overall conclusions and 

recommendations are given in chapter seven. 

1.9 Research terminologies 

The following is a definition of some terminologies contained in the research, 

sorted in alphabetical order: 

1. Computer Literacy: Literacy is the ability to read and write and computer 

literacy is defined as the knowledge and ability to use computers and related 

technology efficiently, with a range of skills covering levels from 

elementary use to programming and advanced problem solving” (Webster 

Dictionary, 2010; Wikipedia, 2010a). 

2. Cultural conflicts: the disagreements between cultural beliefs and values 

by two or more sides (Wiki Answers, 2010). 

3. Customer satisfaction: is the degree to which the customer believes that 

the expectations are met or exceeded by the benefits received (Juran & 

Gryna, 1988). 



13 

4. Data modeling: is a method used to define and analyze data requirements 

needed to support the business processes of an organization and by defining 

the data structures and the relationships between data elements (Wikipedia, 

2010b). 

5. External environment: Conditions, entities, events, and factors 

surrounding an organization that influence its activities and choices, and 

determine its opportunities and risks. Also called operating 

environment(Business Dictionary, 2011a). 

6. Information and Communication Technologies (ICT): refers to 

technologies that provide access to information through 

telecommunications. It is similar to Information Technology (IT), but 

focuses primarily on communication technologies. This includes the 

Internet, wireless networks, cell phones, and other communication mediums 

(Tech Term, 2011). 

7. Integrated Development Planning (IDP) is an approach to planning that 

involves the entire municipality and its citizens in finding the best solutions 

to achieve good long-term development (Integrated... 2011). 

8. Internal environment: The conditions, entities, events, and factors within 

an organization that influence its activities and choices, particularly the 

behavior of the employees (Business Dictionary, 2011b). 

9. International Organization for Standardization (ISO): the framework for 

effectively managing your business and meeting your customers' 

requirements. It is quality management system standards can help bring out 



14 

the best in your organization by enabling you to understand your processes 

for delivering your products/services to your customers (International 

Organization for Standardization, 2010). 

10. National Spatial Data Infrastructure (NSDI): the technologies, policies, 

and people necessary to promote sharing of geospatial data throughout all 

levels of government, the private and non-profit sectors, and the academic 

community (Federal Geographic Data Committee (FGDC), 2011). 

11. Organizational justice: was coined by Greenberg (1987) and is defined as 

an individual’s perception of and reactions to fairness in an organization. 

Justice or fairness refers to the idea that an action or decision is morally 

right. An individual’s perceptions of these decisions as fair or unfair can 

influence the individual’s subsequent attitudes and behaviors. Justice in 

organizations can include issues related to perceptions of fair pay, equal 

opportunities for promotion, and personnel selection procedures (Wikipedia, 

2011d). 

12. Technical: pertaining to computers or technology (Business Dictionary, 

2011c). 

13. The Palestinian Territories (PT): comprise the West Bank and Gaza Strip. 

Since the Palestinian Declaration of Independence in 1988, the region is 

today recognized by three-quarters of the world's countries to be part of the 

State of Palestine, although this status is not recognized by the United 

Nations, Israel and major Western nations, including the United States. 

Effectively parts of the West Bank and Gaza Strip are currently governed by 

the Palestinian National Authority (PNA), while other parts are governed by 



15 

Israeli military authorities, which the UN and international legal bodies 

often refer to as the Occupied Palestinian Territories (Shehadeh, 1997). 



16 

CHAPTER TWO 

CONCEPTUAL AND THEORETICAL 

BACKGROUND 

  



17 

CHAPTER TWO  

CONCEPTUAL AND THEORETICAL BACKGROUND 

2.1 Introduction 

The main objectives of this research as previously mentioned in chapter one is 

to analysis the status of the municipalities in the PT according to e-

municipalities concepts, in addition to propose critical factors to be as the 

foundation toward e-municipality adoption, which will be the first endeavor in 

the PT. 

The main concern of this chapter is to provide an overview about the local 

governments that included the municipalities as one of its major bodies to 

understand the research field. In addition to focus on the concepts of the 

traditional and e-municipality for getting the needed awareness about the 

research subject  

This chapter finished by exploring some of relevant researches and studies to 

highlight more about the e-municipality subject. 

2.2 Local governments 

The term “local government” is generally used to refer to a decentralized, 

representative institution with general and specific powers, developed upon it 

and delegate to it by central or provincial government, in respect of a 

restricted geographical area within a nation or state, and in the exercise of 

which it is locally responsible and may, to a certain degree, act autonomously. 



18 

A local government is thus an institution that the central government has 

established by law for the residents of a particular area. It has the authority to 

exercise legislative and executive authority in an area demarcated by law by a 

higher authority, and it is an autonomous body within the limits of 

constitution of a country, as well as national legislation. It also has the power 

and functions to provide services and amenities to residents in its municipal 

area and to promote and maintain their well-being (Van der Waldt et al., 

2007). 

Local government is also defines as the level of government created to bring 

government to the local populace and to give citizens a sense of participation 

in the political process that influences their lives. Local authorities or 

municipalities were being created to provide services and goods, because of 

the inability of central government to render these services and goods (Reddy, 

1999) 

General objectives of local governments 

Each country’s constitution specifies the place of local government within 

state machinery and its objectives, roles and functions. In general, the local 

government objectives should (Geyer, 2007): 

1. Provide democratic and accountable government for local communities. 

2. Provide services to the communities in an equitable and sustainable 

manner. 

3. Promote social and economic development. 



19 

4. Promote a safe and healthy environment; and 

5. Encourage the involvement of community organizations in the affairs of 

local government. 

2.3 Municipalities 

Local government consists of municipalities that are instituted for each 

demarcated area or municipal area. The word “local” refers to a particular 

place, but when used in relation to government, it refers to a particular part of 

a geographically defined area such as a region or province. Therefore, the 

word ‘municipal’ has the same meaning as ‘local’. The term ‘municipality’ or 

‘municipal area’ refers to the area of jurisdiction of a local or municipal 

government. Also the term ‘municipality’ refers to the organizational units of 

local government, and these can be regarded as decentralized agencies for the 

national sphere of government. (Van der Waldt, et al., 2007). 

Generally, a municipality is an administrative entity composed of a clearly 

defined territory and its population and commonly referring to a city, town, or 

village, or a small grouping of them. A municipality is typically governed by a 

mayor and a city council or municipal council. In most countries, a 

municipality is the smallest administrative subdivision to have its own 

democratically elected representative leadership. In some countries, 

municipalities are referred to as "communes" (for example, French commune, 

Italian comune or Norwegian kommune). The term derives from the medieval 

commune (Village Development, 2011). 



20 

2.3.1 The municipalities’ concept 

A municipality, when referred to as an entity, is an organ of state within the 

local sphere of government exercising legislative and executive authority 

within the specific demarcated area of jurisdiction, consisting of political 

structures, the administration of the municipality and the community. It 

functions in accordance with the political, statutory and other relationships 

among its political structures, political office bearers and administration, and 

its community. It has a separate legal personality that excludes liability on the 

part of its community for the actions of the municipality (Reddy, 1999; Van 

der Waldt, et al., 2007) 

When refer to as geographic area, a municipality is a municipal area 

determined in terms of the municipal demarcation act. Constitution defines the 

role of a municipality in the sense that it must ‘structure and manage its 

administration and budgeting and planning process to give priority to the basic 

needs of the community and to promote the social and economic development 

of the community’. In playing their role, municipal council have a duty to 

(Van der Waldt, et al., 2007). 

1. Use their resources in the best interests of the communities. 

2. Be democratic and accountable in the way they govern. 

3. Encourage communities to be involved in the affairs of local government. 

4. Provide services to the communities; and  

5. Make sure that the environment is safe and healthy. 



21 

2.3.2 General municipalities’ functions and responsibilities 

There are two wings to municipality's responsibilities; the first is concerned 

with macro level functions such as the planning and promotion of integrated 

development planning, land, economic and environmental development. The 

second wing is concerned with the provision of specific services, such as 

health, housing, water and electricity (Vennekens & Govender, 2005). 

1. Integrated development planning (IDP) 

Communities cannot develop in isolation and integrated development 

planning ensures this. For example, if a community needs housing, other 

related issues also have to be examined, such as roads, schools, electricity, 

water and sanitation, etc. IDP brings together various economic, social, 

environmental, legal, infrastructural and spatial aspects of a problem or plan. 

This should take place in a way that enhances development and provides 

sustainable empowerment, growth and equity for the short, medium and long 

term (Geyer, 2006)  

2. Service delivery 

According to Vennekens and Govender (2005) the municipality responsible to 

cover the following fields of services: 

• Health services 

Municipal health defined as environmental health, which means that Primary 

Health Care (PHC) is now the sole responsibility of the municipality. 



22 

• Housing services 

Many of the larger municipalities do take on aspects of this function, and have 

recently applied for accreditation to operate housing programs, in accordance 

with the provision in the Housing Act. 

• Water services 

Historically, the water services sector has had a well-developed legislative and 

institutional framework, which focused primarily on technical aspects  

• Electricity services 

The electricity sector has been caught in a great deal of uncertainty during the 

restructuring of the electricity distribution industry and the establishment of its 

Regional Electricity Distributors (REDs). Municipalities are the authority for 

the electricity function, which means they have the power to appoint and 

negotiate with the service provider. 

• Roads and transport services 

Municipalities are responsible for the provision and maintenance of local 

streets. In addition, municipalities have undertaken provincial road repairs as 

an agent funded by the provincial government. 

• Solid waste services 

The municipalities are responsible for cleansing, refuse removal, dumps and 

solid waste disposal. 

 

 



23 

• Community services 

The community services provided by municipalities, often referred to as 

amenities, take a small part of the budget but are of great value to the public 

through improving social conditions and the well-being of the community. 

These services include community halls, sport and recreational facilities, 

bathhouses and toilets, libraries, arts and culture, resorts, beaches and pools, 

child care, old age homes and cemeteries. 

• Emergency services 

Emergency services are the responsibility of national and provincial 

government where, ambulance and disaster management are concerned. 

Nevertheless, the preparation of disaster recovery plans has been assigned to 

municipality, which means that municipalities are also required to co-ordinate, 

align and regularly review these plans with other organs of state. 

• Security services 

The functions of municipal police services are road traffic policing, policing 

of municipal by-laws and the prevention of crime. Not many municipalities 

provide such a service. Local policing is extremely costly and has a variable 

track record. It can be argued that focusing on developing and maintaining 

community infrastructure and facilities could be a more effective manner in 

which to prevent crime than policing. 

• Public works 

Municipal public works can in fact be regarded as an internal support service 

geared towards construction and maintenance of public infrastructure and 



24 

facilities. An expanded view of public works is associated with the 

government’s Growth and Development Strategy, which advocates the use of 

public expenditure to increase employment though the use of labors-intensive 

projects. 

2.4 Traditional municipality 

Traditional municipality as traditional governance based on “paper and pen 

technology.” (Because of the long tradition, the “bureaucratic culture” is still 

strong. It explains the presence of still existing “computerized paper and pen 

technology based” public information systems. They are sometimes called 

“insular information systems”(Costake, 2007). 

Reference to Costake (2007), that the e- municipality’s characteristics are 

opposed to the traditional municipality’s characteristics, the research deals 

with traditional system (traditional municipality) depending on the service 

delivery context according to e-municipality concepts, and refers to the 

traditional municipality’s characteristics from the perspective of effectiveness 

and efficiency in delivering services to the municipality's customers. 

2.4.1 Characteristics of traditional municipality 

The key issues and areas which proposed in this study to distinguish the 

aspect of traditional system (municipality) from electronic system (e-

municipality) need to be focused more while looking to new era of digital and 

e-municipality. 



25 

1. Municipality’s customers 

The customers; citizen, client and stakeholder are the key factors on the 

municipality system. The customers’ issues reflect the degree of traditional or 

nontraditional systems through how the customers see the municipality and 

how the municipality sees the customers (Yaghoubi, Haghi, & Asl, 2011). For 

example, the two dimensions of relation between the customers and the 

municipality includes: 

• Customers satisfaction 

To create a municipality that works better and costs less, the public service 

should be modeled on standards such as courtesy, timeliness, clarity, and 

accuracy of information, all this with a remarkable amount of professionalism. 

This in turn offers improved business result, customer satisfaction, and 

employee satisfaction (Kolachalam, 2002). Therefore the relation between the 

customers’ satisfaction and the traditional system is opposite. High and 

constant satisfaction about the service delivery reflects a good system and low 

degree of traditional municipality, where the reverse is true. 

• Customer maturity 

The practice of high literacy culture and degree of utilizing the advanced 

technology by the customers are considered significant indicators for 

describing the traditional systems and approaches adopted in the society. The 

participation and transparency issues are interchanging between the 

municipality and its citizen through actual practices of democracy and 

engagement principle. The traditional systems are described as centralized 



26 

system, where it eliminates the effective way of democracy participation, and 

the degree of trust with the whole activities of municipality, in addition to, 

high degree of dissatisfaction (Mathekga & Buccus, 2006). 

2. Information and technology management 

Information and knowledge are the keys to help meeting the challenges of a 

rapidly changing society where the traditional municipality has many 

problems that stem from both Insufficient and improper use of ICT. 

“Insufficient use” refers to the traditional means such as manual archiving 

systems. “Improper use”, on the other hand, refers to the lack of an 

interoperability infrastructure within and among the municipality’s 

environment (Akinci, 2004). 

3. Auto-control 

The lack of auto-control mechanisms is the direct result of improper use of 

ICT. One of the most striking side effects of this problem is high economical 

losses. There are many examples of economical loses due to the lack of auto-

control. One of them is experienced in real estate tax collection. The existing 

of high outages in real estate taxes consider one of important indicator on the 

traditional system in dealing with real estate taxes without implementing 

comprehensive and developed system to found the basic of e-municipality 

(Cömert & Akıncı, 2003). 

 



27 

4. Efficiency 

Due to the traditional ways of doing tasks, the pace of activities is rather slow. 

By traditional ways we mean manual archives, manual procedures, visual 

analyses, traditional ways of interoperability, and finally requesting data from 

the citizens, which is already under responsibility of some government agency 

or municipality departments. There are many examples to this issue. A 

characteristic example is the preparation of zoning plan forms. Low efficiency 

may have a negative impact on the economy since it may postpone 

transforming resources to the economy. Consider how the time to get a 

building permit will affect the construction, trust, transparency, legal and 

interactive business and related sectors, in addition, low efficiency affects on 

the quality of services (Akinci, 2004). 

5. Quality of services 

Quality of services doesn’t affect just only the citizen’s dissatisfaction about 

their municipality, but also affect the economical losses. Several problems 

may be associated with the quality of municipality services. The main 

problem stems from the lack of how a service should be. In the traditional 

way, citizens are perceived as, in a sense, a “worker” of the services. Because, 

traditionally and even backed by the regulations, most municipalities ask 

citizens to collect some of the data needed for their applications. And this is 

the data that municipalities could have obtained from each other if there had 

been an interoperability infrastructure such as national standard data 

infrastructure (NSDI) in place (Cömert & Akıncı, 2003). 



28 

6. Economical losses 

These are the result of the problems in the other traditional aspects and issues. 

As already explained, one of these problems are the lack of auto-control as in 

the case of real estate taxes. Another problem is the rather slow pace of 

activities as in the case of building permits. One more problem is attributed to 

the redundant and/or losses of data through repeating many process that result 

from insufficient or improper using of suitable frameworks and information 

management system (IMS). The economical losses are referring to the high 

degree of improper and inefficient system implemented in the municipality 

environment (Hecht, 2002). 

7. Cost of services 

There are many causes of high costs in traditional municipality. First of all, 

due to the lack of interoperability, development and production costs are high. 

For instance, data transfers between municipalities and other parties and 

between different offices within the same municipality are still performed by 

traditional methods. This is a costly and time consuming operation. As an 

example, the rate of using Internet for data transfer between municipalities 

and government agencies or private sector is very low at the moment. There 

are even cases where one has to actually travel to another city and get the data. 

On the other hand, due to insufficient and improper use of ICT, more than 

needed personnel are employed in municipalities (Akinci, 2004). 

 



29 

2.5 Electronic municipality 

Generally, the major principle of electronic municipality is to provide many 

opportunities to improve the quality of services which are provided to citizens. 

Where the adoption and implementation of e-municipality will significantly 

improve the municipal existence, including: simplifying the delivery of 

services to citizens, eliminating layers of municipality management, making it 

possible for municipality’s customer to find information easily, and get 

service from the municipality, simplifying municipal process and reducing 

costs through integrating and eliminating redundant systems and streamlining 

municipality operations to guarantee rapid response to citizen’s need (W. 

Huang, Siau, & Wei, 2005). 

2.5.1 Definition and philosophy 

E-municipality is an organization that offers its services quickly, availably and 

safely in the field of municipality duties to the civilians. The services of this 

municipality are round the clock and free of timely and spatial restrictions in a 

real city (Layne & Lee, 2001). 

Depending on the Word Bank (2002) definition of e-government as "the use 

of Information and Communication Technologies (ICT) to transform 

government by making it more accessible, effective and accountable", Akinci 

(2004) defined e-municipality as a municipality realizing all kind of 

communication, business and service offer in electronic environment. 



30 

Among many promises of the digital revolution is its potential to strengthen 

democracy and make municipalities more responsive to the needs of their 

citizens. According to Mousavi et al., (2009), e-municipality in minimum 

includes: 

• Providing greater access to municipality information. 

• Promoting civic engagement by enabling the public to interact with 

municipality officials. 

• Making municipality more accountable by making its operations more 

transparent and thus reducing the opportunities for corruption; and  

• Providing development opportunities, especially benefiting rural and 

traditional underserved communities. 

E-municipality is not a tool limited to the richer countries. Indeed, some of the 

most innovative uses of the Internet in governance are appearing in the 

developing world, as ICT are being used to streamline municipality and 

connect it more closely with the people it is supposed to serve. And e-

municipality is not a panacea. Although it can facilitate change and create 

new, more efficient administrative processes, e- municipality will not solve all 

problems of corruption and inefficiency, nor will it overcome all barriers to 

civic engagement (Masouleh & Shahbahrami, 2011; Signore, Chesi, & 

Pallotti, 2005). 

It is important to deal with some critical facts while creating and developing e-

municipality system; Putting the (e) in front of service is not enough and 

focusing on what is technological feasible than the demands of the citizens. 



31 

Citizens need to be aware of the service, know how to use it, and have self-

interest in using it. Moreover, e-municipality does not happen just because a 

municipality buys more computers and puts up a website. While online 

service delivery can be more efficient and less costly than other channels, cost 

savings and service improvements are not automatic. E-municipality is a 

process that requires planning, sustained dedication of resources and political 

will (W. Huang, et al., 2005). Figure  2-1 simplifies the philosophy of 

communication within e-municipality. 

 

 

2.5.2 Key dimensions and stockholders of electronic municipality  

E-municipality is a socio-technical system composed of people, technologies, 

social and organizational structures and processes. In this, the whole idea of e-

municipality is a result of the co-evolution of technological and organizational 

arrangements. What this open system creates is municipality that combines 

organizational innovations with new ICT to perform basic municipality 

functions in a constantly changing environment (Anttiroiko, 2008). 

Figure  2-1: the philosophy of communication within e-municipality. 

Source: author based on (Mousavi, Pimenidis, & Jahankahni, 2009). 



32 

As e-municipality is more about “municipality” than about technology or 

electronic media, the basic dimensions of e-municipality can be derived from 

the functions of the municipality. Municipality is the exercise of authority in a 

district. Municipality is needed to maintain law and order, to provide citizen 

with public services, and to safeguard civic rights and democracy. In addition, 

it must take care of both the management of its internal organization and of its 

multiple relationships with stakeholders in an increasingly complex 

environment. The functions of municipality are divided into four areas (E-

administration, E-services or electronic public services, E-governance-

understood, and E-democracy) and can be used to conceptualize the basic 

dimensions of e-municipality (Anttiroiko, 2008): 

1. E-administration refers basically to all those administrative and 

operational processes of municipality in which ICTs are utilized, including 

both mundane office tasks and basic managerial functions of municipality's 

parties, such as planning, organizing, staffing, directing, and controlling. It 

is closely related to e-management, which refers to “the use of information 

technology to improve the management of municipality, from streamlining 

business processes to maintaining electronic records, to improving the flow 

and integration of information”  

2. E-services or electronic public services refer to public service provision 

aimed at citizens and other municipality customers using ICTs. E-services 

may include information, communication, and transaction services provided 



33 

in different branches of public service, such as health care, social welfare, 

and electric. 

3. E-governance-understood here in the public-sector context as “public e-

governance”-is about managing and steering multi-sectoral stakeholder 

relations on a non-hierarchical basis with the help of ICTs for the purpose of 

taking care of the policy, service, and development functions of 

municipality. In practical terms it is about cooperation, networking, and 

partnership relations between municipality's parties, corporations, NGOs, 

civic groups, and active citizens, utilized by municipality's parties to gather 

and coordinate effectively both local and external resources to achieve 

public policy goals.  

4. E-democracy is about democratic structures, processes, and practices 

which ICTs are utilized to improve inclusiveness, transparency, citizen 

participation, and democratic decision making. It is a generic too-oriented 

conception of democracy.  

E-municipality reflects new way of connection between the applications and 

key stakeholder groups as is shown in Figure  2-2. In fact, e-municipality has 

often been defined in relational terms, using the basic relations as the 

constitutive elements of the concept itself. Such a relational perspective 

emphasizes the ways ICTs could be utilized in interaction between 

municipalities and their customers and other stakeholders. E- municipality-

related stakeholder relations have five basic forms (Z. Huang & Bwoma, 

2003): 



1

2

3

4

5

In addition to 

parties

Municipality

Municip

basic actor g

Bwoma, 2003

1. Municipality

2. Citizens

3. Municipality

4. Municipality

5. Business

In addition to 

parties, such as 

Municipality

Municipality

basic actor g

Bwoma, 2003

Source: author based on 

Municipality-to-Citizens (

Citizens-to- Municipality

Municipality-to-Government

Municipality-to-Business (M

Business-to-Municipality

In addition to those relations

, such as Municipality

Municipality (E2M) relations. There are also other relations such as 

ality–to-NGOs (M2N) … 

basic actor groups are the fundamental ones

Bwoma, 2003). These relations are illustrated in

Source: author based on 

Figure  2-

Citizens (M

Municipality (C2M

Government

Business (M

Municipality (B2M

relations, there are the internal relations of 

Municipality

) relations. There are also other relations such as 

NGOs (M2N) … 

roups are the fundamental ones

These relations are illustrated in

Source: author based on (Anttiroiko, 2008

-2: basic dimensions of electronic municipality.

34 

M2C) 

(C2M) 

Government Agencies (M

Business (M2B) 

(B2M) 

, there are the internal relations of 

Municipality-to-employees (

) relations. There are also other relations such as 

NGOs (M2N) … etc. but the above relations between three 

roups are the fundamental ones

These relations are illustrated in

Anttiroiko, 2008). 

: basic dimensions of electronic municipality.

Agencies (M2G) 

, there are the internal relations of 

employees (M

) relations. There are also other relations such as 

etc. but the above relations between three 

roups are the fundamental ones (Anttiroiko, 2008

These relations are illustrated in Figure 

: basic dimensions of electronic municipality.

 

, there are the internal relations of 

M2E) and employees

) relations. There are also other relations such as 

etc. but the above relations between three 

Anttiroiko, 2008

Figure  2-3. 

: basic dimensions of electronic municipality.

, there are the internal relations of municipality's 

2E) and employees

) relations. There are also other relations such as 

etc. but the above relations between three 

Anttiroiko, 2008; Z. Huang & 

 

: basic dimensions of electronic municipality. 

municipality's 

2E) and employees-to-

) relations. There are also other relations such as 

etc. but the above relations between three 

Z. Huang & 



2.5

Selecting and applying a suita

essential

accountable at local level. This model should consider number

which will be faced in designing and implementing electronic 

Additionally, the challenges in early stages of this development will be 

brought into consideration. Digital divide and trust 

way of devel

al., 2009

The five stages

environment into e

Source: author based on 

5.3 General stages of 

Selecting and applying a suita

essential for

accountable at local level. This model should consider number

which will be faced in designing and implementing electronic 

Additionally, the challenges in early stages of this development will be 

brought into consideration. Digital divide and trust 

way of devel

al., 2009). 

The five stages

environment into e

Source: author based on 

General stages of 

Selecting and applying a suita

for making 

accountable at local level. This model should consider number

which will be faced in designing and implementing electronic 

Additionally, the challenges in early stages of this development will be 

brought into consideration. Digital divide and trust 

way of developing e-municipality

The five stages which are

environment into e-municipality diagrammatically 

Figure 

Source: author based on (Anttiroiko, 2008

General stages of electronic 

Selecting and applying a suitable model for e

making municipality

accountable at local level. This model should consider number

which will be faced in designing and implementing electronic 

Additionally, the challenges in early stages of this development will be 

brought into consideration. Digital divide and trust 

municipality

which are proposed for transforming the municipality 

municipality diagrammatically 

Figure  2-3: basic e

35 

Anttiroiko, 2008). 

electronic municipality

ble model for e

municipality more accessible, effective, efficient and 

accountable at local level. This model should consider number

which will be faced in designing and implementing electronic 

Additionally, the challenges in early stages of this development will be 

brought into consideration. Digital divide and trust 

municipality as will be 

proposed for transforming the municipality 

municipality diagrammatically 

: basic e-municipality relation

municipality 

ble model for e-municipality implementation is 

more accessible, effective, efficient and 

accountable at local level. This model should consider number

which will be faced in designing and implementing electronic 

Additionally, the challenges in early stages of this development will be 

brought into consideration. Digital divide and trust are

will be mentioned later on 

proposed for transforming the municipality 

municipality diagrammatically are exhibited

municipality relation

 

municipality implementation is 

more accessible, effective, efficient and 

accountable at local level. This model should consider number

which will be faced in designing and implementing electronic 

Additionally, the challenges in early stages of this development will be 

are major challenge

mentioned later on 

proposed for transforming the municipality 

are exhibited

municipality relations. 

 

municipality implementation is 

more accessible, effective, efficient and 

accountable at local level. This model should consider number of challenges 

which will be faced in designing and implementing electronic municipality

Additionally, the challenges in early stages of this development will be 

major challenges

mentioned later on (Mousavi, et 

proposed for transforming the municipality 

are exhibited in Figure 

municipality implementation is 

more accessible, effective, efficient and 

of challenges 

municipality. 

Additionally, the challenges in early stages of this development will be 

s in the 

Mousavi, et 

proposed for transforming the municipality 

Figure  2-4. 



36 

 

Source: author based on(Mousavi, et al., 2009). 

1. Cataloguing stage 

In this stage, municipality puts some of its information online and tries to 

create an informational web site which enables citizens to find municipality 

information online. By doing web site, municipality starts to get familiar with 

online sharing and starts training its staff to become e-literate. This 

informational presence of municipality helps citizens (municipality’s 

customer) to find out what to do to obtain specific municipal services.  

2. Interaction stage 

Encouraging citizens to participate in electronic municipality development is 

vital factor in success of electronic municipality process. In first stage, 

municipality information has been provided online in specific formats. If 

citizens do not participate in this process, the whole concept of electronic 

municipality will be meaningless. On the other hand involving citizen in the 

process of developing electronic municipality will contribute to build public 

trust in municipality. Corruption, lack of transparency in municipality 

Figure  2-4: the five proposed stages toward e-municipality. 



37 

procedures and high level of bureaucracy in some municipalities make it more 

difficult to move forward in this stage.  

Reengineering of municipal processes must be considered by developers in 

this stage. To encourage citizen’s participation, municipality has to overcome 

social and technological barriers. Showing citizen that their contributions and 

comments are effective and transparency in municipality procedures which 

makes it easier for citizens to understand these procedures are motivating 

factors. 

3. Communication stage 

In this stage municipality initiates its communication with citizens (M2C), 

businesses (M2B) and itself (M2M). Adding more features to informational 

websites is main technical challenge here. Communicating by electronic mail 

must be utilized in this stage. In this stage municipality puts downloadable 

forms online which can be filled by citizens before contacting municipality 

offices. These forms can be sending back to corresponding municipality 

offices by post or by person. In both cases it saves considerable amount of 

time and effort for citizens, businesses and other municipality customers.  

User feedback can improve quality of services in this stage. More visited web 

page can be tracked so more effort will be put in specific arias. It is possible 

for municipality to track user visits to each web page and the time that they 

spend on each particular subject. This information is useful for improving 

quality of range of services which municipality offers. 



38 

4. Transaction stage  

In this stage, each municipality department provides full service to citizens 

and businesses. These services are limited to functionality of the specific 

municipality department which has been contacted by citizens or businesses. 

For example, if citizen need to contact to more than one department to obtain 

business license, they can’t do it online. Renewing permit license, filling tax 

form online and paying tax online are examples of online transactions between 

municipality and e-municipality customers. 

Providing database management system to support online transaction and 

installation of proper security mechanism are main technical challenges. 

Authorization and authentication issues also must be addressed in this stage. 

Changing and improving legal framework to be compatible with online 

transaction is necessary for this stage. Users contact and transact directly by 

each department directly and without any intermediation. Online transaction 

brings great saving to users in term of time and cost. 

5. Integration stage 

In this stage all municipality departments will be integrated together and one 

main electronic municipality portal will be accessible for users. Users can 

obtain all municipality services online and through this portal. Integration 

maybe categorized into two sub stages. First phase is vertical integration in 

which internal systems will be connected to broad systems in consequences 

and functionality of connected departments similar to each other. For 

example, any department in municipality will be connected to interested 



39 

system in the local governments and vice versa. In this way, record of any 

event which has been committed in any department is accessible by other 

agencies system. Second phase is horizontal integration that connecting 

systems of different municipality departments with different functionalities in 

each others. 

Managing complex databases across internal and external systems and 

confidentiality of user information’s are main challenges of this stage. 

Another challenge is managing consistency in format and user- interface from 

one agency to the next. The function of this stage is quite similar to aggregator 

business model. As aggregator provides one stop shopping, main function of 

this stage is deploying one stop municipality. 

By completing this stage ultimate goal of e-municipality can be fulfilled and 

all customers of e-municipality can benefit from one stop municipality 

services. The correspondence between the stages of the proposed development 

model and the potential challenges in each stage is summarized in Table 

 2-1below. 

E-MUNICIPALITY STAGE CHALLENGES 

Cataloguing 
Designing information access, Data and 

information management and Organizational 
issues 

Interaction 
Digital divide 

Citizen participation trust 

Communication Technical challenge and Privacy 

Transaction 
Authentication and authorization 

Secure transaction 

Integration Complex technical challenge and Confidentiality 

Source: author based on(Mousavi, et al., 2009). 

Table  2-1: challenges in implementing e-municipality through each stage. 



40 

2.5.4 Main challenges of e-municipality 

Once the model for developing electronic municipality is clarified, there is a 

need to identify potential challenges which will be faced during 

implementation. 

1. Digital divide issue 

The digital divide refers to the gap between people with effective access to 

digital and information technology and those with very limited or no access at 

all. It includes the imbalance both in physical access to technology and the 

resources and skills needed to effectively participate as a digital citizen. 

Knowledge divide reflects the access of various social groupings to 

information and knowledge, where the Digital divide can be defined as the 

distance between those who have ability to take advantage of digital 

technology and those who have not (Rice, 2002). 

There are more dimensions to the digital divide in developing countries. In 

addition to issues of accessibility, economy and skill, across a society, the 

differences between developed and developing countries must be considered 

as another dimension of digital divide. These differences could be differences 

in skills (e.g. IT literacy), accessibility (e.g. Internet penetration) and social 

and economical difference across countries or nations. Defining the different 

aspects of digital divide and properly addressing these aspects plays a vital 

role in utilizing Information and Communication Technology in society 

(Shahzad & Sandhu, 2007). 



41 

Six proposed areas to focus on for narrowing down the digital divide. 

Connectivity and technology infrastructure, business environment, consumer 

and business adoption, legal and policy environment, social and cultural 

environment and supporting e-services need to be reviewed and maintained 

properly (Belanger & Carter, 2006). 

2. Trust issue 

One of the most significant and vital issue on the developing systems and the 

being or not the electronic systems is customer’s trust of the organization 

behaviors. In this case one of many definitions for trust is “willingness to 

accept vulnerability based upon positive expectations about another’s 

behavior” (Rousseau, 1998). In initiative electronic municipality projects, it is 

essential to build trust between different stakeholders (government agencies, 

businesses and citizens). 

Trust is becoming an increasingly important issue in the design of many kinds 

of information systems, so the weak information system within traditional 

system will reflect very shallow trust and the vice versa. The trust and 

commitment are central mediating agents of any proposed online relationship 

between any two parties (municipality and its citizens), and failure in building 

trust may lead to failure in obtaining citizen participation. Thus the need for 

building trust between municipality and its citizens is considered as a 

fundamental principle in designing and developing electronic municipality 

systems. 



42 

There are three types of trust, process-based trust, characteristic-based trust 

and institutional-based trust. In presenting electronic municipality initiatives 

in Palestine territory the above three points need to be addressed. In process-

based trust citizens look at their past experiences with particular municipality 

departments. In institutional based trust citizens will look at accountability of 

particular municipality departments and in characteristic-based trust, citizens 

will look at the quality of service that they can get online. The concept of trust 

is crucial because it affects a number of factors which are essential for online 

transaction and concludes that trustworthy relationship must be developed 

between different associated parties.  

There are other associated concepts with trust, such as security and privacy. 

Privacy in the context of electronic municipality services can be considered as 

protecting personal information that is collected by municipality. And in 

another side protecting some municipal information, since this type of 

information is highly valuable, it can be used for improving municipality 

services or it can be sold out to third parties for commercial purpose. If 

citizens or businesses are not confident about the way that their information 

will be treated and have some privacy concerns they won’t go online to 

interact or communicate with municipality. In another words they won’t trust 

the electronic system over the traditional system (Teo, 2007). 

3. Technical, economical and social issues 

According to Signore (2005), e- municipality as e- government is a big 

opportunity to bring services to all citizens, but must also consider some 



43 

challenges issues of technical, economical and social which will be 

overlapped. 

Applying new and advanced approaches and platform instead of the 

traditional approaches and platforms will face many challenges in technical 

perspective, practically in context of data, process and interoperability. The 

change from traditional approach to electronic approaches will relate to the 

economical situations and requirements in addition to social interaction and 

acceptance (Signore, et al., 2005). 

2.6 Electronic municipality as an alternative for traditional 

municipality. 

Replacing electronic municipality means to delete traditional municipality and 

putting electronic municipality instead of it for serving, although traditional 

and electronic municipalities are based on the same principles, and they aim to 

achieve the same major objectives, but the used means for achieving their 

objectives are widely different.(Kolachalam, 2002). 

It is clear that this procedure must be done gradually due to impose its own 

effects at best. One of the important parts of realizing plans and developing 

electronic municipality is compiling a distinct account of what e-municipality 

will be converted if its strategies are executed successfully and it is reached its 

capacities and developed capabilities. Thus a clear and defendable 

justification of the reason and expectation of e-municipality realization will be 

offered; and the possibility of success of e-municipality development will be 



44 

provided with its clear image of the future. On the other hand, agreement on 

the future of electronic municipality unifies all forces and resources of civic 

management collections and provides a common ideal among members of the 

collection (Masouleh & Shahbahrami, 2011). 

Achieving e-municipality is not the end and will not be easy. Therefore, the 

understanding and dealing with the various critical and vital issues of 

principles are the best practices for achieving the e-municipality (Anttiroiko, 

2008). 

2.7 Previous studies 

In general, the available specialized studies on e- municipalities are limited; 

particularly studies related to the analytical aspect on e- municipality, and the 

integrated comprehensive analysis of both internal and external environments 

on e- municipality. 

Among those related studies the followings could be mentioned: 

Mousavi et al., (2009), considered the selecting and applying a suitable model 

for e- municipality implementation is essential. The model comprise from five 

stages (cataloguing stage, interaction stage, communication stage, transaction 

stage, and integration stage), where the model should consider number of 

challenges which will be faced in designing and implementing electronic 

government: Digital divide, cyber security, privacy and trust can be 

considered as main challenges for implementing e-municipality in developing 

countries.  



45 

Poor and Huang (2002) classified E-government into five segments which are: 

e-democracy, e-service, e-commerce, e-management and decision-making. 

Holmes (2001) by contrast, classified e-government according to the 

interaction between, government-to-business (G2B), government-to-

government (G2G) and government-to-citizen (G2C). More Recently, Ndou 

(2004) added government-to-employee (G2E) as fourth type of interaction to 

the above model of Holmes (Al-Azri, Al-Salti, & Al-Karaghouli, 2010) 

There are several systemized models for the successful implementation of E-

government that are based on critical success factors (CSFs) that often 

propose step-by-step models (Lahti, 2006). Many authors divided these factors 

into different categories. For example, in (Altameem, Zairi, & Alshawi, 2006) 

study the researchers categorized these factors into three groups. The first 

paradigm of factors is ‘governing factors’. These factors involved creating a 

shared understanding of vision for the proposed e-government project, 

appropriate strategy, top management support and commitment, strong 

leadership and funding for implementing e-government initiatives. The second 

paradigm of factors is ‘technical factors’. This includes information 

technology (IT) infrastructure and standards, collaboration between agencies 

and citizens relationship management. The third paradigm of factors is 

‘organizational factors’. Those factors considered policy and legal issues, 

service quality, reward system and training. This must be followed by building 

up a shared vision, awareness and understanding of how to manage E-

government successfully. 



46 

The model in Kumar et al. (2007), mentions that for effective e-government 

adoption, the attributes to be satisfied are the following: a) User characteristics 

(perceived risk, perceived control, internet …); b) Website design (perceived 

usefulness, perceived ease of use); c) service quality; and d) client satisfaction 

(Bwalya, 2009). 

Bwalya (2009), proposed conceptual model that incorporates all the attributes 

found in the previous model with the extension of the culture awareness and 

the need to improve on the ICT infrastructure for the content to be easily 

accessible as clarified in Figure  2-5. Once the culture content is incorporated 

into the conceptual model, this will mean that the implementation of the e-

government initiative will not only depend on the ‘give-and-take scenario’ but 

will also have e-participation of the citizens as a feedback mechanism for 

policy/decision making (Bwalya, 2009). 

 

 

 

 

 

 

  

 

Figure  2-5: proposed e-adoption model 

Source: (Bwalya, 2009). 



47 

 

CHAPTER THREE 

OVERVIEW OF QALQILIA MUNICIPALITY 

 

  



48 

CHAPTER THREE  

OVERVIEW OF QALQILIA MUNICIPALITY 

3.1 Introduction 

The research took Qalqilia municipality as a case study on the municipalities 

in the PT. with consist to the aims of this study, this chapter provided an 

overview about the history of local governments and municipalities in the PT 

before and within the period of PNA, and explore the information about the 

municipalities’ categories and distributions in the PT. 

Where, the main concern of this chapter is to focus on Qalqilia municipality in 

perspective of the history, the structure, and the service that the municipality 

delivers to its citizens and customers. 

This chapter finished by describing the characteristics of Qalqilia 

municipality, and matching between these characteristics and the 

characteristics of traditional municipality which mentioned previously in the 

literature review. 

3.2 History of local government in Palestine 

The Palestinian local government has developed over historical phases in 

which Palestine with its historical borders was under foreign forces 

(Ottomans, British and Jordanians in the West Bank and Egyptians in Gaza 

Strip, and the Israeli occupation) (Youth Local Council, 2011). 



49 

3.2.1 Local government before the period of the PNA 

The concept of management of cities and villages (municipal work) originated 

in Palestine during the Ottomani period in 1864. Then, the concept has been 

strengthened and organized under the name of (optional village council) in 

1871. The establishment of the first municipality was in Jerusalem in 1863 

under the leadership of Abdul Rahman Effendi Dajani. The Municipality 

worked under the laws of the Ottomani Empire. The new laws enacted during 

the British Mandate in 1934, and then the laws related to the occupation in 

1948 and 1967 (Shtayyeh & Habas, 2004). 

3.2.2 Local government during the period of the PNA 

After the signing of the Oslo Accords, the PT of the West Bank and Gaza 

Strip were divided into three areas (Area A, Area B, and Area C) and 16 

governorates under the jurisdiction of the PNA; 11 in the West bank and 5 in 

Gaza Strip as explored in Figure  3-1 (Wikipedia, 2011b). 

Since the advent of the PNA in 1994, it found itself face to face with a heavy 

legacy of regulations, laws and military orders including those related to the 

local councils. The PNA issued two law related to the local government: the 

Palestinian Local Councils Election Law of 1996 and the Palestinian Local 

Government Law of 1997. The local government sector is considered second 

largest sector after the governmental sector (6400 employees work in it in the 

West Bank and 2260 in Gaza Strip). It is worth noting that the revenues of the 



50 

local government sector increased from $5 million in 1968, $84 million in 

1990 and reached to $199 million in 1998 (Youth Local Council, 2011). 

In 1994, The PNA established the Ministry of Local Government (MoLG) 

which is concerned with developing municipal and local government bodies. 

One of the major and important goals of the MoLG was to work on the 

consolidation of democracy and decentralization of local government bodies. 

Also, it worked on the reduction of the gap between rural and urban areas, 

development and rehabilitation of the infrastructure in communities, 

development of organizational structures, and increase efficiency and 

upgrades their capabilities. In addition to municipalities, the MoLG 

established a Common services councils that work to provide certain services 

for a number of councils of local government bodies near each other, as well 

as the MoLG has set up committees to regional planning to oversee the 

process of planning and development in the particular region in order to create 

the reality of joint planning for a number of local government bodies (MoLG, 

2011).  



51 

 

 

3.3 The reality and classifications of the municipalities in the PT 

The municipalities in the PT considered the main provider for essential 

services to the population in the PT, as well as village councils. The 

municipalities and their categories were considered as the local governments 

of cities and communities, and play their role in community and economic 

development. Thus becoming relatively stable at the professional level in 

minimum and this contributes significantly on the concentration of work on 

the development of performance and level of services provided to citizens and 

promoting modern methods in operations management within the 

municipalities as well as managing the delivery of services to citizens and to 

public and private sectors (Abdelati, 2005; Shtayyeh & Habas, 2004). 

Figure  3-1: map of Palestinian Territories. 

Source: (Wikipedia, 2011b). 



52 

According to Shtayyeh and Habas (2004), the municipalities in the PT were 

classified into four categories based on population numbers, capabilities, areas 

of activity, and services. And these categories are: 

Municipalities (A): Main municipalities are distributed among central cities 

(provinces) representing a large local municipal body and providing more 

services and local activities in terms of quantity and quality. This body is 

concerned with aspects of development within its borders, in addition to its 

contribution in national development.  

Municipalities (B): Major municipalities represent the cities with a 

population of 25, 000 people and above. These municipalities are in the 

medium-size career although, they are considered survival and crucial in the 

local governments body in PT, and have the ability to recruit resources and 

great resources than those that can be provided by basic municipalities. 

Municipalities (C): These are basic municipalities which were formed in the 

Palestinian towns. They are considered to be small in terms of population 

capacity (10,000 to 25,000 people) and economic activities. The resources of 

such municipalities are limited, and linked to population size and the quality 

of economic activity. Their capabilities and activities are limited in provision 

of basic services and the implementation of some simple development 

projects. 

Municipalities (D): Emerging municipalities are formed in small towns with 

fewer than 10, 000 people. The village councils of these municipalities have 



53 

been upgraded to the level of municipalities. They provide basic services to 

the population  

3.4 The distribution of the of the municipalities in the PT 

The municipalities in the PT arrived to 132 municipalities distributed on the 

West Bank and Gaza Strip. Where the West Bank was divided into three 

regions: the Central Region (Jerusalem), the territory of the north (Nablus), 

and the territory of the south (Hebron) (MoLG, 2011).  

At local level, the PNA divided the provinces to cities and villages additional 

to project committees, and the municipalities in the West Bank distributed 

over the major cities and villages arrived to 107, and the village councils 

arrive to 230, which distributed over the villages, as well as the project 

committees of 120, which represent the small villages and communities 

(Applied Research Institute- Jerusalem (ARIJ), 2010). Gaza Strip divided into 

five governances: North Gaza, Gaza, Deir Al Balah, Khan Yunis, and Rafah, 

the municipalities in Gaza Strip distributed over the major cities and villages 

arrived to 25 (Hamed, 2008). The total numbers of local governments are 482.  

The distribution of those local governments is shown in Table  3-1 where 

Figure  3-2 exhibits the geographic distribution map of local governments over 

the West Bank. 

  



54 

PT GOVERNORATE 
MUNICIPALITIES VILLAGE 

COUNCIL 
PROJECT 

COMMITTEE 
TOTAL 

A B C D 

T
he W

est B
ank 

Jerusalem 0 2 6 2 17 1 28 

Bethlehem 1 2 6 1 20 8 38 

Jericho 1 0 0 2 0 5 8 

Ramallah & Al-
Bireh 

2 5 6 5 48 2 68 

Hebron 1 8 8 0 22 40 79 

Jenin 1 4 6 1 30 34 76 

Tubas 0 1 2 0 5 7 15 

Nablus 1 0 7 1 49 1 59 

Tulkarm 1 1 6 3 17 5 33 

Qalqiliya 1 0 2 2 12 17 34 

Salfit 0 1 1 7 10 0 19 

Total 
9 24 50 24 

230 120 457 
107 

G
aza S

trip
 

North Gaza 1 2 0 1 0 0 4 

Gaza  1 0 0 3 0 0 4 

Deir Al Balah 1 3 1 2 0 0 7 

Khan Yunis 1 1 4 1 0 0 7 

Rafah 1 0 0 2 0 0 3 

Total 
5 6 5 9 

0 0 25 
25 

PT Total 
14 30 55 33 

230 120 482 
132 

 

 

  

Table  3-1: statistics information of local governments in the PT

Source: Author based on (Applied Research Institute- Jerusalem (ARIJ), 2010; Hamed, 

2008). 



55 

 

  

Figure  3-2: map of local government geographic distribution over the West Bank.



56 

3.5 Qalqilia municipality 

Qalqilia municipality is one of the fourteen main municipalities in the PT and 

one of nine main municipalities in The West Bank municipalities of category 

(A) as previously mentioned  All municipalities of category (A) are very 

similar to each other, the study takes Qalqilia municipality as case study, 

where the result of analysis and the descriptions of Qalqilia municipality and 

the community could be applied easily and logically on all municipalities in 

the PT and precisely, the municipality of category (A). 

The services delivery is the main responsibility of Qalqilia municipality as the 

whole municipalities in the PT, but the critical situation generally in Qalqilia 

district and specifically in Qalqlia city as previously mentioned, makes the 

municipality playing more active roles in supporting the neighboring village’s 

councils than the other districts. 

3.5.1 Qalqilia municipality history 

Qalqilia city was managed by the senate of family until 1909. After that year, 

the city representatives created new committee from the leader of village and 

established the first village council. By the efforts of development the village 

council transferred to city council in 1955, and this had been remaining until 

the last election happened in 1959 with new stage of democratic process. This 

stage ended with appointing new committee by the Israel’s occupation in 

1982, this period of occupation power applied the policies and agenda of the 



57 

occupation centralization, where the population affaires were not on the 

priorities of the committee responsibilities (Jalood & Hafes, 2009). 

By becoming the PNA, the Qalqilia municipality practiced its responsibilities 

and authorities as one of main local government’s bodies. Qalqilia 

municipality committees have pursued for developing the work and 

procedures to offer better services to the citizens and this were supported and 

facilitated by the MoLG which pursuing to get the decentralization policies 

over all the PT (Jalood & Hafes, 2009). 

3.5.2 Qalqilia municipality’ structure 

The core of work in Qalqilia municipality substantially standing on the details 

comprise the shape and frame of the municipality’ structure which in 

somewhat similar to all municipalities of category (A). The municipality’ 

structure consists in general from the mayor, municipal council, and 

departments and divisions which through and by them the services are 

delivered to the citizens (MoLG, 2011). Figure  3-3 exhibits the Qalqilia 

municipality structure. 

1. Municipal mayor 

The mayor plays the critical role in leading and decision making at all issues 

related to the municipality work with huge authority. The progress of 

municipality works is depending essentially on the characteristics and policies 

of the mayor with sharing to the municipal council. 



58 

2. Municipal council 

The common number of Qalqilia municipal council included the mayor 

consists from fifteen members through elections. The municipal council 

shares the mayor most critical decisions and supports him. The most common 

role of Qalqilia municipality council is to supervise and control all the process 

and implemented procedures acted by the departments and divisions of the 

municipality. 



59 

 

  

Figure  3-3: Qalqilia municipality’s structure. 



60 

3. Municipal departments and divisions 

Qalqilia municipality pursues to provide the citizen’s need, and to supply 

them with both services; direct services (e.g. Water / waste water 

management, and electricity), and indirect services (e.g. welfare and 

transportation safety). Municipal departments and divisions are considered as 

the framework of employee and workers categorized according to the 

municipality’s activities and abilities to achieve the short and long term of the 

municipality objectives. 

Municipal departments  

Qalqilia municipality consists recently from fifteen departments. The 

underneath descriptions review the departments and their responsibilities. 

1. Human resource department 

This department concerns all issues that correlated to