UNRWA's MICROFINANCE PROGRAMME IN GAZA WINS AGFUND PRIZE

Commissioner-General's address on the occasion of the AGFUND International Prize for Pioneering Development Projects, held under the patronage of His Royal Highness Prince Talal Bin Abdel Aziz, President of the Arab Gulf Programme for United Nations Development Organisations

15 February 2000, UN HQ Geneva

Your Royal Highness, Excellencies, ladies and gentlemen, colleagues. It is with great honour and deep appreciation that I accept the AGFUND Prize for International Pioneer Projects in the field of "Poverty Eradication and Alleviation" on behalf of UNRWA, the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East.

It is especially gratifying for UNRWA to be chosen for this award by so prestigious a committee; composed of such distinguished individuals as Dr. Ahmed Mohammed Ali, Dr. Fredrico Mayor, Ms. Rigoberta Menchu Tum, Dr. Seyyid Adbduali and Professor Mohammed Yunis. Not only have they played important roles in raising international awareness about the poor and marginalised. They have each actively contributed to the development of poverty alleviation strategies based on the humanitarian principle that the poor must be empowered through "resources of hope" to enable them to change their life circumstances. It is this shared principle that we in UNRWA have used in the development of our microfinance activities.

I know that the staff of UNRWA's microfinance programme are especially proud that Professor Yunis is among those who selected their project. To them (and us) he is the Guru of microfinance. They have followed with awe the achievements of the GRAMEEN Bank, which has done so much to improve the lives of millions of poor in Bangladesh. From him they have learnt that credit is a basic human right; a right that allows poor and marginalised people to improve the lot of their children and families through their own endeavours and entreprenuership.

This award comes on the 50th Anniversary of the creation UNRWA. While I am most grateful for the recognition this award brings to the continuing achievements of UNRWA and its staff - 99 percent of whom are themselves Palestinian - it would be remiss of me not to point out the terrible humanitarian and international relations failure that has left the plight of the now more than 3.5 million Palestine refugees unresolved for so long. In the absence of Palestinian citizenship and statehood, it has been UNRWA's task over the past half-century to ensure that Palestine refugees have access to services that meet their basic human needs for shelter, health, education and social welfare.

While caring for the basic human needs of Palestine refugees in the refugee camps of Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza, UNRWA has worked to develop tools of community development and self-reliance through its educational, health and social welfare programmes. Our microfinance programme in Gaza is one of a number of successful development initiatives that UNRWA has created during the past half-century; but one we take particular pride in. Since 1997, the programme has been self-sufficient, and its sister-programme in West Bank has since 1998 followed the same path. The ability of microfinance programmes to be self-sustaining is critical to their success, particularly as our other basic-needs programmes have been faced with persistent budgetary crisis in recent years.

In an economy like Gaza, where over 30 percent of the population live in poverty, the investment in microenterprise has generated income for poor people and their households. It has allowed low-income men and women to meet the basic needs of their families, increased their dignity and provided them with resources of hope. During the past decade - through 23,000 loans - this programme has provided capital to over a third of all enterprises in Gaza. In human terms, more than 14,000 families have been provided with income that hopefully helped them gain a foothold to a more empowered future.

This generous prize will allow UNRWA to further develop its microfinance programme by providing resources to meet some of the following objectives:

1. To establish a pilot consumer credit programme to help poor families to get through times of household financial shortfalls when there is high demand on family income flows, such as the beginning of the school or college year, or events such as feasts, births and weddings.

2. To expand the branch office network of the Gaza and West Bank microfinance programme to other areas of the West Bank and to Jordan.

3. To invest in improvements in the programme's Management Information System.

4. To make further investments in staff training and human resource development.

Your Royal Highness, let me once more express my gratitude to you and the Arab Gulf Programme for United Nations Development Programmes (AGFUND) for singling out our endeavour in the field of microfinance from the many other equally deserving programmes that you and the selection committee reviewed. It is my great pleasure to receive this award on behalf of the UNRWA's microfinance programme.