{"id":249212,"date":"2021-04-07T20:08:29","date_gmt":"2021-04-08T00:08:29","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/?post_type=document&p=249212"},"modified":"2021-04-12T20:09:25","modified_gmt":"2021-04-13T00:09:25","slug":"us-announces-restoration-of-us-150-million-to-support-palestine-refugees-unrwa-press-release","status":"publish","type":"document","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/document\/us-announces-restoration-of-us-150-million-to-support-palestine-refugees-unrwa-press-release\/","title":{"rendered":"US Announces Restoration of US$ 150 Million to Support Palestine Refugees – UNRWA Press Release"},"content":{"rendered":"
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7 April 2021<\/span><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Arabic: \u0627\u0644\u0639\u0631\u0628\u064a\u0629<\/a><\/p>\n

The United States announced today that it is contributing US $150 million to the\u00a0United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East\u00a0(UNRWA<\/a>), restoring its role as a decades-long friend and supporter\u00a0of\u00a0the UN agency that provides life-saving\u00a0human development and\u00a0humanitarian\u00a0aid\u00a0assistance to Palestine refugees across the Middle East.<\/p>\n

The restoration of funds comes after recent years of severe financial crisis for\u00a0UNRWA.\u00a0The COVID-19 pandemic\u00a0has\u00a0only worsened the situation, forcing the Agency to respond to a public health crisis amid the\u00a0most serious financial crisis in its history<\/a>\u00a0and manage its resources on a month to month basis due to unreliable funding.<\/p>\n

From\u00a0the time UNRWA was established in 1949 until 2018, the United States was the largest funder of the Agency, ensuring that UNRWA was able to fulfill its UN General Assembly mandate to provide humanitarian assistance to Palestine refugees until a\u00a0just and\u00a0enduring political solution to the conflict is achieved.<\/p>\n

Remarking on the\u00a0U.S.\u00a0announcement, Secretary of State Antony\u00a0Blinken\u00a0said, \u201cThe United States is pleased to resume\u202fsupport for UNRWA\u2019s\u202fservices, including\u202fan\u202feducation for over 500,000\u202fPalestinian\u202fboys and girls,\u202fthereby\u202fproviding\u202fhope and stability in\u202fUNRWA\u2019s five fields of operation in\u202fLebanon, Jordan, Syria, and\u00a0the West Bank\u00a0and Gaza Strip.\u201d<\/p>\n

The newly announced U.S. funding will support\u00a0the overall\u00a0UNRWA\u00a0programme\u00a0budget — the majority of which funds the operation of more than 700 schools educating over half a million children and almost 150 primary health clinics providing 8.5 million patient consultations a year — as well as\u00a0emergency appeals<\/a>\u00a0to respond to dire humanitarian challenges in Syria, the West Bank\u00a0(including\u00a0in\u00a0East Jerusalem)\u00a0and Gaza.\u202fThese funds will support\u00a0food, emergency cash assistance, emergency health, mental health and psychosocial support, education in emergencies, protection, water and sanitation,\u00a0and COVID-19 response.<\/p>\n

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe\u00a0Lazzarini\u00a0expressed gratitude for the renewed UNRWA-U.S. relationship and welcomed the funding disbursement. \u201cUNRWA and the United States are historical partners in working together, alongside other generous UN Member States, to ensure that Palestine refugees can thrive. UNRWA could not be more pleased that once again we will partner with the United States to provide critical assistance to some of the most vulnerable refugees across the Middle East and fulfill our mandate to educate and provide primary health care to millions of refugees every day. There is no other institution that does what UNRWA does, and we are committed to protecting the safety, health and future of the millions of refugees we serve. The U.S. contribution comes at a critical moment, as we continue to adjust to the challenges the COVID-19 pandemic presents. We encourage all Member States to contribute to UNRWA.\u201d<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

7 April 2021 Arabic: \u0627\u0644\u0639\u0631\u0628\u064a\u0629 The United States announced today that it is contributing US $150 million to the\u00a0United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East\u00a0(UNRWA), restoring its role as a decades-long friend and supporter\u00a0of\u00a0the UN agency that provides life-saving\u00a0human development and\u00a0humanitarian\u00a0aid\u00a0assistance to Palestine refugees across the Middle East. The […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":172,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"template-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[2553],"document-category":[1329],"document-source":[1817],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[1945,2441,2533,2153,1745],"entity":[1985,1729],"document-language":[6544],"class_list":["post-249212","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","country-united-states-of-america","document-category-press-release","document-source-united-nations-relief-and-works-agency-for-palestine-refugees-in-the-near-east-unrwa","document-subject-assistance","document-subject-education-and-culture","document-subject-health","document-subject-refugee-camps","document-subject-refugees-and-displaced-persons","entity-state","entity-united-nations-system","document-language-arabic"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/249212","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/document"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/172"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/249212\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=249212"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=249212"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=249212"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=249212"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=249212"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=249212"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=249212"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=249212"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}