UN Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People in Amman – UNRWA Commissioner-General, staff participate in high-level roundtable discussion ahead of seminar – Press release

UNITED NATIONS SEMINAR ON ASSISTANCE

TO THE PALESTINIAN PEOPLE

Amman, 19 and 20 February 2008

___________________________________________________________________________

PAL/A

18 February 2008

UNITED NATIONS RELIEF AND WORKS AGENCY FOR PALESTINE REFUGEES IN NEAR

EAST CHIEF BRIEFS DIGNITARIES IN AMMAN, JORDAN AHEAD OF SEMINAR

(Received from a UN Information Officer.)

In a prelude to the upcoming two-day United Nations Seminar on Assistance to the Palestinian People, the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) told visiting delegations in Amman that the impact and sustainability of humanitarian work ultimately hinged on the resolution of questions of statehood, self-determination and enforcement of international rule of law – questions that were the responsibility of political actors to address.  

Speaking at a high-level roundtable discussion, following a press conference with members of the Committee on the Exercise of the Inalienable Rights of the Palestinian People and international and local staff of UNRWA in Jordan, Karen AbuZayd said that recurrent conflict – alongside political isolation and movement restrictions – had made it virtually impossible for Palestinians and refugees to build the socio-economic foundations for sustainable development necessary for a future Palestinian State.  Protracted conflict and extensive human rights violations in Gaza and the West Bank contradicted the grand vision enshrined in the United Nations Charter.  

Introducing the roundtable participants, Palestinian Rights Committee Chairman, Paul Badji of Senegal, expressed appreciation for the "absolutely critical" role played by UNRWA in alleviating the living conditions of the Palestinian refugees.  Committee members were concerned, however, about the lack of commitments from the donor side to the Agency's operational needs.  They would have a first-hand look at the situation on the ground when they visited some refugee camps on Thursday, he noted.

Several key members of UNRWA’s staff joined Ms. AbuZayd to reflect on developments and fundraising challenges in the Gulf region.  Before turning over the floor to them, she underscored that UNRWA’s humanitarian and human development mission rested on the services it delivered in its fields of operation; its credibility depended on the efficiency and effectiveness of those programmes, which impelled it to seek ways to better serve Palestinian refugees.  

The largest of the UNRWA programmes, education, was described by Mohammad Tarakhan, representative of the Agency’s Education Director, Kair Shaikh.  The department, in operation since 1950, had as its mission, to equip Palestine refugee children with the required knowledge, skills, attitudes and values in accordance with their educational needs, identity and cultural heritage.  Among other aims, the programme sought to foster awareness of the need for interdependence and tolerance of differences among individuals and groups that made up the multicultural and global society.

The education programme also sought to enable Palestinian children and youth, as democratic citizens to maintain a high sense of responsibility to balance their rights and needs with those of the family community, multicultural and global society, he said.   The Department had been striving to maintain a level of service, but the cutbacks “forced” on UNRWA affected the education programmes and midterm development plan, and the goals related to the Millennium Development Goals.  

He said that the most important challenges had been necessary budget cuts, the disruption in the learning process, mainly in Gaza, the West Bank and northern Lebanon, where the Department was working under well-known socio-economic and geopolitical realities.  In addition to thousands of lost teaching days, other challenges included insufficient teachers’ training centres and inadequate children’s recreation facilities. School buildings were in need of repair, and new schools – 17 per cent of the schools were rented – were obtainable only through project funding.  As for educational innovations, reforms were ongoing, and an effective programme was under way on teaching basic human rights concepts.  

    Priorities were: the inclusion in UNRWA schools of children with special educational needs, ensuring quality education in conflict and post-conflict areas, monitoring achievement in Arabic, Math, Science and English; conducting school quality reviews; and ensuring child and safety protection.  

     The Agency’s Director of Health, Guido Sabatinelli, said that the series of recent tragic events had result in the deterioration of health services to the Palestinian people in Gaza and the West Bank.  There were continued high levels of mortality and disability, and ongoing deterioration of the health status of Palestinian people due to extreme difficulty in reaching health care facilities.  The ongoing deterioration of living conditions affected power supplies, sanitation, water and were not conducive to good health.  Among the other concerns, he highlighted limited resources to deal with specialized health care needs, such as mental health, adolescent health and hospital care.  

     Mr.  Sabatinelli also highlighted key achievements, including UNRWA’s ability to have maintained its high level of delivery of health services to the Palestinian people throughout the ongoing humanitarian crisis, providing health care to more than 4 million registered refugees via 129 health care clinics.  It had maintained the quality of services through its health clinics despite a 3 per cent growth in the refugee population, an increase in the cost of drugs and equipment and a decrease in UNRWA funding, and difficult mobility of staff in the West Bank, among other challenges.  One emphasis of the five-year strategy would be on developing system-wide psychosocial well-being among groups at risk, specifically children and youth.  

     Still, despite the increasingly unstable operational environment, the Department was one of the most cost effective and efficient systems in the region.  Yet, it needed to continue its fundraising activities, in order to fill the gaps and deliver much-needed health care services to the Palestinian refugees.  

     The Director of Relief and Social Services, Beth Kuttab, said her department received 10 per cent of UNRWA’s budget, yet it had as its mission to focus on the poorest refugees, whether women, persons with disabilities, the elderly or young, whom mainstream programmes tended to sideline.  “Poverty is rising by leaps and bounds,” she said.  Through a registration system of paper records that began in 1950, 4.6 million refugees were on the system, and only 31 per cent of those registered were living in refugee camps; the others were dispersed.  

     She highlighted a programme for the “special hardship population”, under which $250,000 was distributed to those persons every three months, in the form of food and cash packages, but it was falling behind; there simply were not enough funds or enough cash subsidies.  Plus, the cost of food had risen by 50 per cent in the past several months.  Essentially, her Department was “running just to keep up with the status quo”.  A priority this year at UNRWA, for the first time in its history, had been to develop a definition of abject and absolute poverty, thereby making it possible to compare fields of operation.  The focus could then be on resources for those below the abject poverty line.

     Explaining that the Agency had been responsible for housing refugees since it commenced its operations in 1950, Issam Miqdadi, the Director of Infrastructure and Camp Improvement, discussed the challenges.  UNRWA had been handing out tents and some shelters with zinc roofs, but operations had grown significantly, and now most refugees were living in substandard conditions, owing to a lack of infrastructure, sewage, drainage, and inadequate water supply.  In Gaza, the salinity of the water far exceeded the World Health Organization limits.  

     He said his department was aiming to improve the living conditions and create environmentally and socially sustainable neighbourhoods, hoping to be more strategic in its urban planning and specifically delivering improvements for 59 camps.  There were no maps, and he did not know where people were living or who owned what, so the main priority was to collect data on 59 camps and have that serve as a basis for the improvements.  The approach was developmental, rather than relief-oriented, and a pilot project to develop and test the methodology would be geared to three West Bank camps.  

     Addressing the provision of finance services to enhance development and mitigate problems for the refugees, Alex Pollock, Director of Microfinance and Microenterprise, said that while the programme had reached full operational self-sufficiency in both Jordan and Syria, since the onset of the intifada of September 2000, it had not been able to fully meet that objective in the West Bank and Gaza, owing to the persistent economic crisis, political instability and sectarian violence – although it fully covered its cost in the West Bank in 2007.  

     Since 1992, he said, the programme had financed nearly 142,000 loans worth $150 million from a revolving loan capital fund that had reached $17 million, with an average capital growth of just over $1 million per year.  By the end of 2007, the Department employed more than 250 staff, which was expected to grow to 400 by 2010.  Unlike other UNRWA departments, the programme received no support from the Agency’s regular budget.  Its expansion was covered by project funds and revenues from loans, and all but one of its 16 branches had been established and financed from operating revenues.  

     He said that the department was committed to realizing the United Nations vision of building inclusive financial services for the poor through expanding its credit services and introducing savings and deposit instruments for the poor.  It endeavoured to improve the quality of life of small business owners, microentrepreneurs and poor households through the provision of credit and other financial services that sustained jobs, decrease unemployment, reduced poverty, economically empowered women and youth, and provided income-generating and asset-building opportunities to Palestine refugees and other proximate poor and marginal groups.

     On the subject of fundraising, a representative of the Commissioner-General for Arab Funds, Peter Ford, while welcoming the crucial role played by the host countries, touched on the “modest” contributions of regional donors generally. He acknowledged the support of Arab countries for infrastructure projects.  For example, they had refinanced the rebuilding of Jenin, Khan, Younes and Rafah, the last being rebuilt by the Saudis. At the same time, he noted the potential for significant increases in pledges, for instance, by the Arab League.    Dialogue with regional donors had recently increased, with some encouraging results.

     Before opening the floor to discussion, Ms.Abu Zayd added that UNRWA had been operating for the past three or four years with a $100 million deficit.

       Afghanistan’s Ambassador and Vice-Chairman of the Committee, Zahir Tanin, said that, in addition to its political support, he would like to see an increased contribution to UNRWA from the Organization of Islamic Conference.  He feared, however, that the problem was donor fatigue, even in Afghanistan, where, after “9/11”, it was still not possible to attract the money needed for reconstruction.  Here, in a rich region of the world, there was a feeling now of solidarity with the Palestinian people – that the question of Palestine was at the root of the problems in the region and that, without solving it, the other problems, including that of terrorism, would not be solved.  

     Speaking for the Organization of the Islamic Conference, Samir Bakr Diab suggested that the Islamic summit next month in Dakkar, Senegal could be used as a fund raiser.  The organization wanted to help UNRWA, but it did not always know the “ways and means” with which to do so, he told Ms. Abu Zayd.  

     Rodrigo Malmierca Diaz of Cuba, also Committee Vice-Chair and head of the non-alignment movement, said the question of Palestine had been a historical priority for Cuba and for the last summit in Havanna.  He hoped the meetings in Annapolis and Paris could lead to substantial contributions and the achievement of a just and lasting peaceful solution to that long, unresolved conflict.

     Committee Rapporteur and Ambassador of Malta, Saviour F. Borg detailed the financial contributions of the European Commission and European Union to UNRWA, with the total figure growing 22 per cent between 2005 and 2006, and 30 per cent between 2006 and 2007.  Combined, the Commission and Union had contributed to Palestinian programmes 1.5 billion euros in 2007, or more than double what it had contributed in 2002.  A discussion of human rights was at the top of the European Union's agenda.  Malta was a small country, yet he never remembered it giving so much to a single cause as it had to the Palestinians at the recent Paris donors' conference, he added.    

     Jordan's Ambassador, Mohammed Al-Allaf, felt that a new kind of thinking was emerging at UNRWA; it was touching on the strategic dimension of the issues, much more than engagement in the day-to-day business of managing the problems, and that signaled a better use of resources, an important shift.  

     Permanent Observer of Palestine to the United Nations, Riyad Mansour, suggested ways of thinking about helping UNRWA.  Financially, it was important to step up to the plate.  Also important was to provide for emergency programs related to Israeli occupation, but he agreed with some speakers that Arab countries could and should contribute significantly to that effort.  He recommended brainstorming in the next month or two with the leadership and UNRWA's Commissioner-General to raise that at the Arab summit.

     Mr. Badji pointed out that UNRWA and the Committee were partners in promoting the rights of the Palestinian people.  The Committee members had come to learn of the issues, to know what it was the Committee was supposed to be advocating.  

     In closing, Ms. AbuZayd said "we are the human-humanitarian arm to address the issues, but it is the political back up that is very important".  The major concern, presently, was access, and what was needed was the opening of the borders.  Jordan had 42 per cent of UNRWA's refugees and only 20 per cent of the budget, she said, adding that the European Union provided more than half the total UNRWA budget.

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