UN agency for Palestinian refugees has urgent budget crisis

CAMEROON – The U.N. bureau helping Palestinian refugees is facing an “existential” fund situation and appealing for urgent backing of $120 cardinal to support indispensable education, healthcare and different services running, the agency's main said Friday.

“We support struggling, moving aft cash,” Philippe Lazzarini told a tiny radical of reporters.

“The fiscal concern is simply a existent existential menace connected the organization, and we should not underestimate this due to the fact that it mightiness unit the enactment to alteration services,” helium added, and if that happens “we hazard to illness precise quickly.”

At involvement is the agency's quality to support 550,000 children successful school, supply wellness attraction for thousands, and wage the salaries for its 28,000 staffers successful November and December, Lazzarini explained.

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency known arsenic UNRWA was established to supply education, wellness care, nutrient and different services to the 700,000 Palestinians who fled oregon were forced from their homes during the warfare surrounding Israel’s constitution successful 1948.

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Lazzarini added that it wasn’t wide for bureau officials “if yes oregon nary we volition beryllium capable to support our activities successful November and December.”

He emphasized the value of the United States returning arsenic a large donor to UNRWA this twelvemonth aft erstwhile president Donald Trump stopped each backing successful 2018. The Biden medication announced successful April it would supply a full of $235 cardinal to projects successful the West Bank and Gaza arsenic good arsenic to UNRWA.

But Lazzarini said the U.S. backing has been offset by decreased backing from different donors arsenic a effect of the economical interaction of the COVID-19 pandemic, and nary accusation from imaginable donors successful the Middle East.

He pointed to the United Kingdom's alteration successful its overseas assistance fund from 0.7% to 0.5% of GDP, and the diminution successful Arab enactment to UNRWA from $200 cardinal successful 2018 to astir $89 cardinal successful 2019 and $37 cardinal successful 2020.

He said UNRWA's uncertain backing has generated anxiousness among Palestinian refugees that the “lifeline” provided by the bureau could beryllium weakened, and a feeling of being abandoned by the planetary community.

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In an effort to reverse this trend, Lazzarini said Sweden and Jordan volition beryllium co-hosting a league successful mid-November successful Brussels whose main purpose is to guarantee much predictable multi-year backing for the agency.

He said UNRWA is seeking $800 cardinal a twelvemonth for 3 years for its “core" activities — education, wellness care, and societal extortion and information nets.

UNRWA besides has a abstracted exigency fund which provides humanitarian assistance to Gaza and Syria, helium said. This twelvemonth that fund was astir $500 million, and helium said it volition astir apt beryllium akin successful 2022.

There are present 5.7 cardinal Palestinian refugees, including their children and grandchildren, but Lazzarini said UNRWA lone helps the 550,000 successful schoolhouse and 2.8 cardinal who person wellness benefits.

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