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Donors pledge US$160 million, Palestinian refugees need more

The logo of the United Nations is seen at the General Assembly hall at U.N. headquarters, Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2021, during the 76th Session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. (Eduardo Munoz/Pool Photo via AP) The logo of the United Nations is seen at the General Assembly hall at U.N. headquarters, Tuesday, Sept. 21, 2021, during the 76th Session of the U.N. General Assembly in New York. (Eduardo Munoz/Pool Photo via AP)
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UNITED NATIONS -

Donors pledged about $160 million for the UN agency helping Palestinian refugees, but it still needs over $100 million to support education for more than half a million children and provide primary health care for close to 2 million people and emergency cash assistance to the poorest refugees, the agency's chief said Friday.

Briefing reporters on the outcome of Thursday's donor conference, Philippe Lazzarini said the pledges when turned into cash will enable the UN Relief and Works Agency known as UNRWA to run its operations through September. But "I do not know if we will get the necessary cash to allow us to pay the salaries after the month of September," he said.

"We are in an early warning mode," Lazzarini said. "Right now, I'm drawing the attention that we are in a danger zone and we have to avoid a situation where UNRWA is pushed to cross the tipping point, because if we cross the tipping point that means 28,000 teachers, health workers, nurses, doctors, engineers, cannot be paid."

UNRWA was established to provide education, health care, food and other services to the 700,000 Palestinians who fled or were forced from their homes during the war surrounding Israel's establishment in 1948.

There are now 5.7 million Palestinian refugees, including their children and grandchildren, who mostly live in camps that have been transformed into built-up but often impoverished residential areas in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, East Jerusalem and Gaza, as well as in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. But UNRWA only helps the more than 500,000 in school and close to 2 million who have health benefits.

Lazzarini said the more than $100 million shortfall in funding for 2022 is about the same as the shortfall that UNRWA has faced every year for almost a decade, but while income has stagnated costs have increased.

In past years, UNRWA has been able to absorb the shortfall through austerity and cost control measures, he said, but today it's not possible because there is very little left to cut without cutting services.

"Today, we have some classrooms with up to 50 kids," the UNRWA commissioner-general said. "We have a double shift in our schools. We have doctors who cannot spend more than three minutes in medical consultation. So if we go beyond that, it will force the agency to cut services."

Lazzarini said UNRWA's problem is that "we are expected to provide government-like services to one of the most destitute communities in the region, but we are funded like an NGO because we depend completely on voluntary contributions."

Funding the agency's services has been put at risk today because of the "de-prioritization, or maybe increased indifference, or because of domestic politics," he said.

Lazzarini said the solution to UNRWA's chronic financial problem requires "political will" to match the support for the agency's work on behalf of Palestinian refugees.

He said UNRWA has a very strong donor base in Europe and last year the Biden administration resumed funding which was cut by the Trump administration, but he said the overall contribution from the Arab world has dropped to less than 3% of the agency's income.

Donors have also faced financial difficulties stemming from the COVID-19 pandemic, and now there's a major effort to help Ukraine in its war with Russia, he said.

"We will know better at the end of the year how much it will impact the agency," Lazzarini said.

Some donors have already warned UNRWA "that we might not have the traditional top-up at the end of the year, which would be dramatic" for the agency, he said.

Ahead of Thursday's donors conference, Israel's UN Ambassador Erdan Calls on countries to freeze contributions until all UNRWA teachers that it claims support terrorism and murdering Jews are fired.

Lazzarini said UNRWA received a letter from Israel's UN Mission Friday which he hadn't read, but he said all allegations will be investigated and if there is a breach of UN values and misconduct "we will take measures in line with UN policies."

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