Background and Justification
Environment in the Gaza Governorates and the West Bank had been deteriorated
In the last few decades. Since Oslo Agreement, several environmental NGOs had been established to tackle the environmental problems in the area. The lack of coordination and communication between these organization results in duplication and contradiction, and waste of time and efforts. Meanwhile, these NGOs face difficulties in getting external funding due to several reasons. A preliminary participatory appraisal was conducted to identify these reasons. It was found that the major reasons behind the failure to get external funding and their weak performance are:1) Staff weakness in English language,2) Need to improve proposal writing ,3) weak communications, email and internet and 4) Most or even all staff are volunteers.
These reasons were discussed in length during several meetings of the concerned institutions. One of the fruitful conclusions of these meetings is the formation of a new body to coordinate between and to strengthen the capacities of these NGOs.
During the last two years, efforts had effectively succeeded in establishing the "General Union of Non-Governmental Environmental Organizations" (GUN-GEO) of
8 environmental NGOs. Several Palestinian Environmental NGOs and government representatives (Ministry of Interior, Ministry of Environment, office of the National Institutions) held several meetings to discuss matters regarding coordination, cooperation and strengthening the environmental NGOs to enable them to better handle the environmental issues and improve their administrative and managerial capabilities. GUN-GEO was created in 1999 by the union of 8 non-governmental
Environmental organizations. The new organization combines the strengths, efforts and the human resources of the 8founding multidisciplinary environmental organizations. The Ministry of Environment approved and recognized the union as a legal environmental body working in Palestine.

Several meetings, workshops and brainstorming sessions were then, held to set up the priorities and guidelines for the programs, projects and activities in the next 5years. These programs were in line with the national environmental strategy set up by the Ministry of Environmental and with the global environmental trends according the Rio summit and the Agenda of the 21st Century.

Vision 
Working as one team, to create a self-sustaining environment in which our children live, play and work for a real change leading to individual and community prosperity, and a catalyst for capacity building leading to visionary future environmental leadership.

Mission
GUN-GEO  aims at initiating programs, projects and activities that will improve/ protect/ sustain the local, regional and global environment for future generations through research, information exchange, partnership, coalition and cooperation with private and public sectors, national, international, governmental and non- governmental institutions.

Goals
• To collaboratively create a forum for institution strengthening and cooperation and to improve the capabilities of NGOs to carefully address the environmental problems through capacity building, application of sound research and management, education, information and awareness programs.
• To effectively increase the cooperation , collaboration and exchange between NGOs, government and the private sector to fully implement the principals of sustainable development in line with the national environmental strategy through developing, promoting and coordinating programs and disseminating the results.
• To establish regional, international and global relationships, partnerships and coalition between the concerned and similar institutions and providing technical support to the local and member NGOs through information exchange and transfer of know-how.
• To look for revolving, flexible and recovery funds to create self-managed environmental development fund, e.g. sustainable development, women and development, green markets, renewable energy, to create new green jobs for women, youth, disabled, disadvantageous and poor sectors in the society in an attempt to alleviate poverty and unemployment.
• To effectively involve the public, community and grassroots groups in the environmental problems, through participatory appraisal and management, to better understand the relationship between social and environmental justice and the human environmental rights in a democratic way, from which strategies, policies and plans will emerge.