The Commissioner-General of UNRWA (United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East), Philippe Lazzarini, warned on Monday 9 November about his agency’s lack of money.
Without additional international support, amounting to $70 million, the salaries of 28,000 UNRWA employees cannot be paid in November and December.
“W’re running out of cash. [...] I have the impression that Palestinian refugees no longer receive the attention they deserve from the international community”, explained Mr Lazzarini to the European Parliament Committee on Foreign Affairs. Already earlier in the year, an exceptional call by the agency for $180 million to deal with Covid-19 only received a third of the requested funding.
The Commissioner-General of the agency recalled that the agency provided services as a government would, but that it depended solely on voluntary contributions and could not, unlike a State, raise taxes or borrow funds.
Aware of UNRWA’s recurrent financial difficulties, its Commissioner-General wished to organise a major conference in 2021. “Several partners have called for a multi-year strategy on how UNRWA should deliver its services in the future to ensure that refugees have access to education, health, social security and how to adapt our programmes to keep pace”, he said. Mr Lazzarini also pledged the organisation’s “full transparency and accountability” to donors.
Recalling that the support of the EU and its Member States accounted for almost two thirds of the financial contributions to the agency, Mr Lazzarini called for the renewal of the partnership between the EU and UNRWA for a further period of four years. In June 2017, the two entities had signed a joint declaration on EU support for 2017-2020 (see EUROPE 11803/15). The Commissioner-General hoped that other donors would follow the example of this multi-year partnership. (Original version in French by Camille-Cerise Gessant)