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Mr President, Distinguished Guests, Dear Colleagues and Friends, welcome to all of you at this event: an occasion for commemoration and celebration of UNRWA’s sixtieth birthday. It is a moment for sober reflection on what UNRWA represents, on our extraordinary history of genuine partnership, side by side with the Palestinian people and on the way forward into the future; a future that is likely to be characterized by uncertainty and insecurity, of which the recent war in Gaza served as a horrifying reminder. But in spite of that, and after six decades of service, we continue our human development work with unabated commitment. My message today is clear: UNRWA, in times of war as well as in periods of stability, stands with the Palestinian people – shoulder to shoulder -- until lasting peace takes root. This is a moment of meditation on the existential dilemmas that confront a sixty year old Agency that should not exist at all. Which of the first UNRWA workers, risking their lives to bring aid and assistance to those who had fled conflict, the sick, the dying, the desperate, the needy could have dreamed that the Agency would still exist sixty years later? And for our refugees living amid the squalor of many of the camps today, their continued reliance on UNWRA, their political uncertainty and statelessness is equally baffling. We were created as a temporary body, charged with serving Palestine refugees until their fate was resolved by the establishment of a just and durable peace. Six decades on, our very existence is a sad reminder of the collective failure of the international community to deliver statehood to those who have endured the pain of dispossession and exile for too long. As human misery and injustice compete so fiercely for priority on the international agenda, I say to world leaders: do not forget the Palestinian people. Their fate is inextricably linked to the fate of the entire Middle East. Peace for all in this troubled region means just that – peace for all people -- and it must, in the end, mean peace for all Palestinians. Failure to grasp that essential truth is to condemn this region and its people to further suffering and instability. But we must temper the solemnity of this event with celebration and pride in UNRWA’s sixty years of achievement, which has transformed the lives of millions of Palestine refugees and their communities. Our contribution to the human capital of the region is beyond doubt. In the field of health, UNRWA has achieved a near one hundred per cent inoculation record. Infant mortality rates have dropped from 160 per 1,000 births in the 1960s to 22 per 1,000 births today. In education, UNRWA’s record is impressive, bringing as we do education to half a million children in the Middle East. To give just one example, in 1951 the proportion of female pupils was 26 per cent: today it has doubled. UNRWA’s Microfinance and Micro-enterprise Programme in nearly two decades has awarded over one hundred and forty thousand loans at a value of some 150 million US dollars. It is a tribute to the sheer industriousness, energy, creativity and determination of the Palestinian people that this programme is self-sustaining. Our work in all areas is underpinned by the values which we as a United Nations organisation embody; toleration, peaceful co-existence, respect for the rights of others. Promoting an environment in which these values can take hold is our proud boast today and will be our lasting legacy. It is our contribution to the peace, stability and prosperity of the Middle East, promoting at an individual level the dignity of our refugees. As Commissioner General, I say to UNRWA staff, to our beneficiaries, to our hosts and to our donors, this achievement is your achievement, an achievement of which you, and we, can all be justly proud. I s ay again that UNRWA will continue to be at the forefront of efforts to shape a better future for all our refugees and their communities regardless of wider political realities. So what of the future? After a period of organizational reform and institutional soul searching, UNRWA is perhaps stronger in its commitment and vision today than at any time in its history. Our sense of mission has never been clearer, helping Palestine refugees achieve their full potential in human development. But many challenges remain. The continued blockade in Gaza subjects over a million people to degrading collective punishment which can only fuel extremism. For UNRWA it places frustrating limits on the work that would allow us to deliver the peace dividend to which I referred earlier. Elsewhere in the occupied Palestinian territory, closures in the West Bank are a daily humiliation which place cruel constraints on UNRWA itself and more important, the refugees we serve. This will not support the wider interests of peace. UNRWA’s ongoing financial crisis in the face of the global financial turmoil continues to threaten services, but we remain grateful to our hosts and donors, those who remain committed to UNRWA and our historic mission. My message to them and the wider community is drawn from our recent experiences of the war in Gaza. We worked throughout the fighting, delivering food aid and primary health care to hundreds of thousands of people, to the dying and the needy, quite literally under fire. To the great credit of UNRWA staff in Gaza, we resumed our human development work soon after the guns fell silent, opening all of our 221 schools Gaza just a week after the ceasefires came into effect. It saddens me that it took such a terrible 22 days to demonstrate to the world what UNRWA stands for. But it should also gladden all of us that like the people of Gaza, like the Palestinians themselves, UNRWA has come out of that crisis, like so many crises in the last sixty years ever more determined to fulfill its mission. The images of our facilities under fire, of our main warehouse in Gaza burning fiercely, our convoys under attack and our staff making the ultimate sacrifice of their lives, were truly transformative coming as they do after sixty years of service and achievement and for communities across the Middle East. They have become emblems of our commitment to the Palestinian people, sixty years after we first stood by them, icons of UNRWA’s steadfastness as a partner for peace and development. Thank you. Ends |
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