UN agency helping Palestinian refugees warns of looming funding deficit
First graders at a UNRWA-run Elementary School in Gaza City participating in stress-relieving games and activities
Karen AbuZayd, Commissioner-General of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), told a press conference that the agency’s funding problems are more serious than ever.
Most of UNRWA’s running costs go to staff salaries, she said, and without an injection of nearly $17 million each month the agency will not be able to guarantee salaries into 2010.
Ms. AbuZayd said she has written in the past week to every country that has ever donated to UNRWA to ask them to contribute “special pledges” given the current situation, and she hopes they will respond urgently.
UNRWA, which was established in late 1949 and will mark its 60th anniversary with a series of public events next week, provides education, health care, social services, microfinance, camp improvement and emergency aid to an estimated 4.6 million Palestinian refugees living in the Gaza Strip, the West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.
Ms. AbuZayd stressed that countries which had pledged money last year had met those pledges, but the global economic crisis meant they had often given the same amount as in previous years, even though inflation, exchange rates and other issues meant that UNRWA needs more money than ever just to carry out the same mandate.
She said that both staff and refugees were “becoming restless” about the funding problem and contingency plans may have to be taken unless money is provided soon.
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