Renewed US assistance won’t end UNRWA’s financial troubles

A Palestinian boy receives food supplies from a UNRWA warehouse in Rafah in the southern Gaza Strip. (File/AFP)

• Spokesman says pandemic has hit both the aid agency and the Palestinians it serves badly
• COVID-19 pandemic has been hindering UNRWA’s ability to service the population in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon

AMMAN: The UN relief agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, has hailed the US administration’s resumption of aid as politically significant but said its longstanding financial crisis will continue during 2021, should no more donations come.
US President Joe Biden’s administration has announced the resumption of assistance to Palestinians, including to UNRWA, signaling a U-turn from the policies of President Donald Trump, who cut off assistance to the agency in 2018.
The State Department said it would provide a total of $235 million in assistance to projects in the West Bank and Gaza and to UNRWA, which provides aid and other vital services, including education and critical health care services to 5.7 million Palestinian refugees in the occupied territories, Gaza Strip, Jordan, Syria and Lebanon.
As detailed by US Secretary of State Antony Blinken in April, $150 million will be go to UNRWA, $75 million to economic and development assistance and $10 million to peace-building programs.
UNRWA Spokesperson Sami Mshasha has said that the US’s renewed assistance to UNRWA is extremely important but the money pledged is still below Washington’s regular donation to the relief agency.
“Despite the announcement of the Biden administration that they will resume the support to the agency, till the end of 2017 the US was our largest donor with a donation of $260 million, which represented at that time one fourth of our budget. This year they have announced that they will only be giving us $150 million to our regular services and regular budget, as well as our emergency operations,” Mshasha said in an interview with Arab News.
Mshasha explained that UNRWA has entered 2021 with a budget deficit exceeding $200 million, part of which was a carry-over of liabilities the agency had failed to pay in 2020. “As we speak, we are looking at a budget deficit exceeding $150 million and this is a serious one with (the agency’s) budget of 1.2 billion that covers our regular operations and emergency operations.
“The American resumption of aid is extremely important politically as well as financially and it will prompt other donors either to resume the levels of funding that (UNRWA) enjoyed from them in years before or to step up and increase their funding.”
The spokesperson said that some of UNRWA’s cash crisis has deepened with its longtime donors either cutting off or reducing their donations as a result of the COVID-19 crisis and its accompanying economic hardships. “So the additional money from the US is basically balanced out by the fact that two other major donors have indicated that they will not be able to meet their annual obligations as in past years even though their contributions remain important for us.”
Mshasha also said that Washington has announced additional assistance to UNRWA following the recent conflict in Gaza to help an early recovery and meet the needs of the coastal enclave’s population. “(It is) not clear how much but it will be an additional money.”
“All in all, the financial situation of the agency is very dire,” he said, explaining that UNRWA is still applying strict austerity measures on its 28,000 staff members to address the budget deficit, continue delivering its health, education, relief and social services to Palestinian refugees and meet its obligations to external services providers.
The spokesperson explained that UNRWA has launched an emergency appeal of $232 million to finance its operations in the occupied Palestinian territory (oPt) in 2020 and another appeal of $380 million for 2021. “In both these emergency portals, we (are) also envisioning a budget deficit – a huge one in that.”
COVID-19
Mshasha explained that the COVID-19 pandemic has been hindering UNRWA’s ability to service the population in Gaza, Syria and Lebanon and meet their increasing health and economic needs.  
In addition to health services and vaccination, he explained that the relief agency is struggling to repair the “economic devastation” of the population – most of them are daily-paid workers who ended up unemployed as a result of the pandemic. “Those people are to be added to the number of people who are under the poverty line and thus qualify for our food and in-kind assistance in Gaza, Syria and elsewhere.”
He also said that UNRWA is working with health agencies to vaccinate as many people as possible “but the inoculation rate is still very low” in besieged Gaza, war-hit Syria and crisis-hit Lebanon. “We are now concerned about a third wave (of COVID-19) after the recent conflict in Gaza and this is now on the top of all worries and challenges gripping the Strip.”
UNRWA has launched a $ 94.6 million COVID-19 appeal to mitigate the impact of the pandemic on Palestine refugees in the Middle East, with a special focus on health, cash assistance and education.
Mshasha explained that the agency is working with its strategic dialogue partners Sweden and Jordan which, he said, have been leading the efforts to solve UNRWA’s financial problems. They plan to organize an international conference to bring together the agency’s donors and supporters to discuss their long-term arrangements for UNRWA. The spokesperson expected to the international conference to take place in October.
“We need a predictable framework for our financial situation, one we can build on and plan upon and one that is multiyear.”