T. Belman. UNRWA should be replaced by UNHRC. The latter is dedicated to resettling refugees throughout the word. The former is dedicated to preserving their refugee status for ever.
Lazzarini: It’s not enough to renew the mandate, UN nations must provide funds for it. Failure to do so would “push the agency towards financial collapse.”
Chronic underfunding of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency that services 5.6 million Palestinian refugees will lead to its collapse, warned UNRWA Commissioner General Philippe Lazzarini.
“We need US $817 million. The full US $817 million,” Lazzarini said as he asked the donor conference at UN headquarters in New York on Thursday afternoon to help his organization fund its $1.6 billion budget for 2022.
Failure to do so, he said, would lead to a “disruption of services.”
The organization, formed by the UN in 1949, helps Palestinians in Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Gaza, the West Bank and east Jerusalem. The UN is set to renew its mandate this fall, as it does every three years.
“To illustrate austerity, think of 50 children in one classroom, double shifts within schools, or a medical visit where a doctor spends less than 3 minutes with a patient.”
It’s not enough to renew the mandate, Lazzarini said: UN nations must also provide the funds to execute it. Eventually, failure to do so would “push the Agency towards financial collapse.”
“For years, we managed the chronic underfunding through internal measures such as cost control, austerity and zero-growth budgets,” he said.
“Today, we have depleted our financial reserves and reached the limits of cost control and austerity measures,” he explained, adding that, “austerity now affects the quality of the services.”
“We are not in a position anymore to adopt austerity and cost control measures of the size of the funding gap,” he said.
A funding failure now would put at risk the education of half a million girls and boys as well as the primary health care for close to two million people, the commissioner explained.
“To illustrate austerity, think of 50 children in one classroom, double shifts within schools, or a medical visit where a doctor spends less than three minutes with a patient.”
The pace of donations, he said, cannot keep up with the needs of a growing population.
Not a new problem
UNRWA has long been in financial distress, but the situation has become more acute in light of the COVID-19 pandemic and the Russian-Ukrainian war.
“The situation in Ukraine has exacerbated the noticeable increase in food and commodity prices, seriously affecting the household economy of Palestine refugees,” Lazzarini said.
Poverty rates have reached 80% in Lebanon, Syria and Gaza, where “too many Palestine refugees report living with one meal a day,” he said.
“I have appealed to all donors to ensure that Palestine refugees are not a collateral of the events in Ukraine.”
About 22,000. (probably under 20,000 by now) I’d let the Arabs look after their own children, they are all potential terrorists and murderers anyway by now, if the are over 4 years old.
The 22,000 and lessening every week, are the remains of the original Arabs who “left” Israel in 1948. Of course many did not leave, moving only 2-3-4 miles from their homes, to get out of the immediate path of the boasted ,Arab invasive bloodbath. Many even stayed in their own homes.
Many came from Syria, Egypt and Jordan to pretend to be refugees when they heard about the munificent goodies that UNRWA was handing out. They had almost NO Arab speakers, and certainly those they had were totally dishonest, getting their hands into the “pot”.. I KNOW that many Arabs would register under several names (I had Arab “friends” who told me exactly how they did it) like Ibraham Ben Muhammed……Muhammed Ben Ibrahim, Abdullah Ibn Rashid ..Rashid Ibn Abdullah….ad infinitum.
{When I lived in New Westminster B.C., a friend, the son of a Chinese restaurant owner told me that the first Chinese to receive benefits and support, did exactly the same thing, and no westerner could tell the difference.. }
It was total chaos for the first few years, with 9 Europeans and 39,000 Arab employees all of them “refugees”… Of course it’s been whittled down now, to about 29,000 “employees”, and they’ve settled into a cosy groove of teaching their “right” of return….and how to murder Jews with a knife, the vital body spots etc.
On a few ventures into YESH in the mid 1970s I saw huge piles of sacks of a variety of staple foods stencilled from UNRWA, or UN, openly being sold in Arab stores. I say many Arabs with bunches of food and other item permits held between the fingers of both hands FOR SALE, Like ticket scalpers, and more.
Untold billions have gone into the pockets of the machers there, as well as into the pockets of terrorists, probably a slice equalling 30-40%.
The “donors” mostly Western Nations, KNOW where the money is going , but as long as there is minimum terrorism in their countries and a constant bleeding of the Jews, they are satisfied.
Didn’t I read recently on this site that the real number of Palestinian refugees is in the order of 30000? I wonder who exactly is profiting from the excess monies. Of course, as always, the children are going to suffer, as if they won’t anyway.