The West Bank and Gaza faced major threats to their economic growth and the resulting employment opportunities for Palestinians. Political instability and the sluggish economy in 2019 and early 2020 were already hurting job growth and were further hurt by the effects of the COVID-19 pandemic. While more than 3,000 Palestinian university students graduated each year with an IT background, relatively few of them were employed in the IT sector because they did not have the requisite skills that responded to the demand of the IT firms and those firms’ end-market clients. IT sector remains a promising and growing sector though, accounting for 15 percent of service exports in 2017.

In 2021 and as a response to the negative impacts of COVID-19 pandemic on the IT sector, TechStart and IPSD formed the joint program “Covid-19 relief program” to provide financial support to Palestinian IT companies struggling through the pandemic. A total of 167 applications were submitted, and 64 firms received awards.

620 employees received salary subsidies from the program, of which 217 are female. The total awarded support was $1.8 Million.