NEF has a dozen staff based in a main office in Ramallah, a field office in Nablus and a project office in Hebron/Khalil. NEF has been registered by the Palestinian Authority as an international NGO since 2000.

1) Kindergarten Education Reform: NEF recently began its third year of collaboration with the World Food Program in supplemental nutrition for Palestinian children. The program serves approximately 60,000 students in 189 kindergartens and 100 primary schools in the northern and central West Bank. NEF delvers enriched WFP food commodities to twenty-two women's centers where 1,250 NEF-employed women produce enriched snacks that NEF distributes to the kindergartens and primary schools. NEF also is surveying the kindergarten infrastructure and piloting renovations of sanitary facilities, playgrounds and classrooms. NEF plans to launch soon a comprehensive program to improve kindergarten education, including curriculum, teacher training and infrastructure, in collaboration with international and local NGO's and women's entrepreneurship centers.

2) Olive Oil Production: NEF has concluded its fourth year of development of the Palestinian olive oil sector. Started in collaboration with UNDP and a private foundation, the program seeks to improve production and marketing of olive oil through training and equipping producers in the north of the West Bank from planting to harvesting and pressing. In 2006-2007, NEF trained 1,500 farmers and provided tools and equipment to 450 farmers, helping to produce 500 tons of extra virgin oil and sell more than 300 tons. NEF worked through collectives and cooperatives, which it plans to develop into agro-business centers. Last year, NEF began supporting the newly-established Palestinian Olive Oil Council, which shares offices with NEF in Nablus.

3) Women's Mobile Banking: NEF recently launched a MEPI-funded project to train women as mobile bankers to provide credit services primarily to West Bank women. NEF has selected 50 women from five women's associations who will receive training from, and later be hired by, Arab Bank, Bank Al Rafah and Jordan Bank. With these banks, NEF will develop simplified brochures and loan documentation that the mobile bankers can take to remote areas and present to less educated women. They then will bring to participating banks valuable information on local credit markets.

4) Residential Mortgages: NEF manages a housing loan guarantee program in collaboration with Arab Bank that has provided 670 loans, averaging $12,500, totaling $8.25 million. Started in 1997 by NEF's partner organization, the program encouraged Arab Bank in 2004 to launch its own program, which has lent more than $120 million.
NEF is examining setting up a local Palestinian organization to offer residential mortgages to rural youth, in conjunction with its mobile banking project.

NEF's History in Palestine: NEF has operated programs in Palestine since 1991, in partnership with UNDP, WFP, UNICEF, USAID, MEPI and Arab and local organizations in education, agriculture, environment and youth development.