RELIEF & SOCIAL SERVICES

• UNRWA supports Palestine refugee families unable to meet their own basic needs and helps promote the self-reliance of the refugee community through community social development.

• Direct material and financial assistance, including food is provided to the poorest eligible refugee families undergoing special hardship to ease their immediate plight. These are families who are without a male adult medically fit to earn an income and without other identifiable means of financial support sufficient to cover food, shelter and other basic needs and are registered under the Agency’s Special Hardship Assistance Programme (SHAP). Food rations/cash subsidy support is provided on three monthly basis to an average of 63,865 families constituting 249,992 persons or 5.7 per cent of all Palestine refugees registered with the Agency. Other types of assistance under this programme, including selective cash and shelter rehabilitation are provided based on the family need.

• “UNRWA provides technical and financial support to a network of 104 community-based organizations (CBOs) including women’s programme centres and community-based rehabilitation centres managed by local volunteers. These CBOs provide Palestine refugees especially women, persons with disabilities, children and youth with access to opportunities to address their socio-economic priority needs and promote their self-reliance.”

• The department also maintains updated registration records on the more than 4.4 million refugees through monthly updates and amendment of family registration and ration cards and carries out assessments of eligibility for UNRWA services on an ongoing basis.