{"id":257972,"date":"2021-09-07T16:17:14","date_gmt":"2021-09-07T20:17:14","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/?post_type=document&p=257972"},"modified":"2021-09-08T16:20:02","modified_gmt":"2021-09-08T20:20:02","slug":"mou-between-us-and-unrwa-7-sept-2021-daily-press-briefing-excerpts","status":"publish","type":"document","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/document\/mou-between-us-and-unrwa-7-sept-2021-daily-press-briefing-excerpts\/","title":{"rendered":"MOU between US and UNRWA \u2013 7 Sept. 2021 Daily Press Briefing \u2013 (Excerpts)"},"content":{"rendered":"

7 SEPTEMBER 2021<\/strong><\/p>\n

The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today\u2019s noon briefing by Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General.<\/p>\n

\/…<\/p>\n

Question<\/u>:\u00a0 Thank you, Farhan.\u00a0 On 16 July, the United States and UNRWA\u00a0[United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East] signed a memorandum of understanding.\u00a0 In this memorandum<\/a>, the US dictates to UNRWA how to behave, how to recruit, how to scrutinize the staff, how not to express their affiliation or their ideologies.\u00a0 And how to even change the curriculum for schools.\u00a0 I think this is a kind of interference, direct interference.\u00a0 It’s a precedent that a Member State dictates to an UN agency what to do and how to behave.\u00a0 If you cannot answer me, why they did that, I really request someone from UNRWA to come and answer all these questions.\u00a0 Thank you.<\/p>\n

Deputy Spokesman<\/u>:\u00a0 From our standpoint, UNRWA interacts with a variety of Member States to address their concerns.\u00a0 And we trust that UNRWA does a professional job and its staff do professional jobs.\u00a0 But, we are aware that different Member States, including donor Governments and others with whom UNRWA interacts, have had concerns about its practices.\u00a0 And it’s in dialogue with them to address that.\u00a0 And that’s part of its own responsibilities.<\/p>\n

Correspondent<\/u>:\u00a0 This is a written agreement.\u00a0 This is something not only just expressing hope that UNRWA will do this and do that.\u00a0 This is more than that.\u00a0 It goes beyond.<\/p>\n

Deputy Spokesman<\/u>:\u00a0 Again, this is part of the regular interactions that UNRWA has with countries to address their own concerns and make sure that the work that we do is objective and is\u2026 and the professionalism of our staff is respected by all.<\/p>\n

Question<\/u>:\u00a0 So you say that donations, it’s okay to be granted under conditions?<\/p>\n

Deputy Spokesman<\/u>:\u00a0 No.\u00a0 What I’m saying is that this is part of a normal dialogue.\u00a0 And, indeed, other UN agencies also engage in dialogues with donors and others to address whatever concerns they have about our practices.\u00a0 So, that is a standard part of the work that UN agencies do.<\/p>\n

Question<\/u>:\u00a0 Can you please arrange for the Commissioner General, Mr.\u00a0[Philippe] Lazzarini, to brief us on that or any other issue?<\/p>\n

Deputy Spokesman<\/u>:\u00a0 We will see whether UNRWA is interested in a briefing along those lines.\u00a0 All right.\u00a0 Have a good afternoon, everyone.<\/p>\n

For information media. Not an official record.<\/strong><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

7 SEPTEMBER 2021 The following is a near-verbatim transcript of today\u2019s noon briefing by Farhan Haq, Deputy Spokesman for the Secretary-General. \/… Question:\u00a0 Thank you, Farhan.\u00a0 On 16 July, the United States and UNRWA\u00a0[United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East] signed a memorandum of understanding.\u00a0 In this memorandum, the […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":172,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"template-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[2553],"document-category":[2573],"document-source":[5352,6169,1817],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[1945,1745],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[],"class_list":["post-257972","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","country-united-states-of-america","document-category-highlights-of-the-noon-briefing","document-source-secretary-general","document-source-united-nations-department-of-global-communications","document-source-united-nations-relief-and-works-agency-for-palestine-refugees-in-the-near-east-unrwa","document-subject-assistance","document-subject-refugees-and-displaced-persons","entity-united-nations-system"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/257972","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\/257972\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=257972"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=257972"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=257972"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=257972"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=257972"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=257972"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=257972"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=257972"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}