Saudi Arabia contributes US$6 million to UNRWA’s programmes – UNRWA press release

Kingdom of Saudi Arabia Contributes US$6 million to UNRWA’s programmes

in the West Bank and Gaza

Amman – The Government of Saudi Arabia has made to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) an additional contribution of US$ 6 million to support the Agency’s programmes in the occupied

Palestinian territory.

A memorandum of understanding for this contribution was signed today at UNRWA Headquarters in Amman by His Excellency the Vice-Chairman, Managing Director of the Saudi Fund for Development, Engineer Yousef Al-Bassam and UNRWA’s Commissioner-General Mr. Peter Hansen.

The contribution will be used to fund the Palestine Refugees Registration Record Project and other education, health and housing projects in refugee camps in the West Bank and Gaza strip.

Earlier this year, the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia paid to UNRWA US$ 1.8 million for the Agency's regular budget for 2004. The amount represented a regular contribution of US$ 1.2 million and US$ 600.000 being the last payment of a US$ 2.4 million additional contribution announced by Saudi Arabia in 2000 to be paid to UNRWA over a period of four years.

Since 1994, Saudi Arabia has contributed generously to Agency projects, particularly under the Saudi Programme of Assistance to the Palestinian People under which UNRWA received US$ 38 million in funding for projects implemented by the Agency in the Palestinian areas. These projects included the construction of a school of nursing in Gaza, the construction, upgrading and equipping of 37 schools and 9 health centres, as well as the repair and expansion of more than 800 shelters in various refugee camps.

In remarks he made at the signing ceremony, Mr. Peter Hansen expressed his deepest appreciation of the continued generous support provided by the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia to UNRWA, on behalf of more than four million Palestine refugees in Jordan, Syria, Lebanon, the West Bank and Gaza Strip.

-ENDS-