Palestine refugees – Announcement of pledges to UNRWA – Press release

IT IS NOT ENOUGH MERELY TO SALUTE UNRWA'S WORK WITHOUT GIVING IT

RESOURCES NEEDED TO CARRY OUT ITS WORK, ASSEMBLY PRESIDENT STATES

Addressing Pledging Meeting for UNRWA, Hennadiy Udovenko (Ukraine)

Stresses Obligation of International Community to Support Palestine Refugees

Following is the statement of the President of the General Assembly, Hennadiy Udovenko (Ukraine), to the meeting of the Assembly's Ad Hoc Committee for the Announcement of Voluntary Contributions to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), at Headquarters this morning:

This meeting has been convened pursuant to General Assembly resolution 1729 (XVI) of 20 December 1961 to enable Governments to announce their pledges of voluntary contributions to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

Less than a week from now, it will be 48 years since the General Assembly established UNRWA to provide emergency assistance, as a temporary measure, for the Palestine refugees, who then numbered three  quarters of a  million people.  Over those intervening years, as the refugee problem has remained unresolved, UNRWA has become an indispensable factor in the daily lives of the Palestine refugees who today number nearly 3.5 million.

From the early days of providing the essentials of life — food,  shelter, clothing, as well as schooling and emergency  medical care  —  UNRWA has evolved into a provider of wide-ranging educational, health, relief and social services which have set a standard of excellence that is a tribute to the dedication of UNRWA's staff and to the determination of the refugees to make a better future for themselves.

UNRWA's accomplishments over the years have been a tangible recognition of the international community's continuing responsibility to the  Palestine refugees.  Today that continuing commitment is in serious jeopardy, because of the failure of the international community to provide UNRWA with the resources it needs to carry out its programmes and  deliver relevant services.

In his statement at the Special Political and Decolonization Committee [Assembly's Fourth Committee] last week, the Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Peter Hansen, outlined the dimensions of this challenge.  We appreciate the extraordinary efforts which he and his colleagues have made this year simply to secure the resources that UNRWA has needed to get through 1997.

Member States were informed that if UNRWA were to receive in 1998 the same amount in contributions as it did in 1997, it would still face a deficit of $54 million.  In deciding their  levels of  assistance to UNRWA for the coming year, donor governments must take this structural deficit problem into account, and find ways of addressing it.

For 1998, the first year of the 1998-1999 budget biennium, it is indicated that UNRWA's financial requirements are$343 million for its General Fund, which covers the cost of implementing its regular education, health, relief and social service programmes.  Of that amount, the cash component amounts to some $314 million — representing virtually a "zero growth" level compared with the  cash portion of  $312 million  in the 1997 budget.  And that is despite the fact that the  refugee population served by the Agency grows by some 3.5 per cent a year — a natural growth rate that is most visibly evident in increased enrolments in UNRWA's school system, where  it is  not  unusual  to find  as many  as  60 pupils  crammed into a classroom.

UNRWA has been introducing management reforms and innovations to enhance the efficiency of programme delivery and make the best use of the resources made  available   by   the   international community.  But, as the Commissioner-General informs, UNRWA's budget  is based not on some notional conception of an ideal level of programme delivery, but rather on the needs of  the refugee community —  needs which,  given the economic conditions prevailing in the region, are even  greater today than at anytime in the recent past.

However, the  austerity measures which the  management of UNRWA has had to impose over  the past four years have begun seriously to affect the  level and quality  of the  services UNRWA delivers.  The UNRWA installations — schools, health centres and other installations, some of  them 25 or  30 years old — are critically in need of repair.

UNRWA also  still needs additional funding  to complete the equipping and commissioning  of the  232-bed general  hospital which  it has  built in the Gaza Strip  with funding from  the European Union and other donors, and to meet  some $5.4 million  in outstanding  costs for the move of the Agency's headquarters from Vienna to Gaza and Amman, which was completed last year.

The United  Nations can be  proud of the work of UNRWA,  one of its oldest operational agencies, over the past 48 years.  The UNRWA can be proud  of its thousands  of dedicated staff members,  almost all  of them Palestinians and  refugees themselves, who  over these  years have  committed their lives and careers to  the improvement of  the living conditions  of their people.  Yet it is not enough merely to salute  the work of UNRWA without  giving the Agency the resources, and its dedicated staff  the tools, needed  to carry out the work we have entrusted  to them.  Whatever the  ups and downs in the political  process  of   negotiations, the Palestine refugees  remain a community in need of assistance.  Their  living conditions  continue  to worsen.   Their lives  are filled with  uncertainty and apprehension.  They continue to look to the United Nations for the assistance they need  to carry on with their day-to-day lives in dignity, to realize their right to the best possible education, health care and other  social services, even as their  longer-term  prospects  are  determined  as  part  of  the  political process.

To the Palestine refugees, the  blue United Nations flag  flying above the schools, health centres and  other familiar facilities  operated by  UNRWA across the Middle East region is more than just a reassuring  flash of colour in the landscape of their daily lives; it is a symbol  that the world has not forgotten them,  and a  reminder of  the commitment  — indeed  the obligation — of the international community to support them.

I call on you today  to demonstrate to those refugees  that their faith in this organization, their belief in that  commitment, has not been misplaced.  I urge all present today to respond generously to our call to help UNRWA to continue and reinforce the fine work which we have asked it to do, on our behalf, for the Palestine refugees.

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