UNRWA fails to secure funds to keep schools, clinics open for Palestinian refugees

The UN's refugee agency for Palestinians has failed to secure the funds needed at an event on Friday, despite a dire warning from the UN chief that the agency was "on the verge of financial collapse".

The UNRWA pledging conference in New York provided just $107 million in new funds – around a third of the $300 million it needs to keep helping millions of people.

UNRWA Commissioner-General Philippe Lazzarini said he was grateful for the new pledges but they are below the funds needed to keep over 700 schools and 140 clinics open from September through December.

"We will continue to work tirelessly with our partners, including host countries – the refugees' top supporters – to raise the funds needed," he said.

UNRWA was created to provide Palestinians ethnically cleansed alongside the Israeli state's 1948 creation – a period they know as the Nakba ("catastrophe" in Arabic) – with education, health care, social services and in some cases jobs.

"As children, we find the meaning of childhood only within the pages of our books," said Ahmad Abu Daqqa, 15, a student leader from the Gaza Strip.

"UNRWA schools are our only refuge. It's where we find hope. We have dreams that reach the stars, despite the painful reality of our lives."

At the beginning of the year, UNRWA appealed for $1.6 billion for its programs, operations and emergency response across Syria, Lebanon, the Israeli-occupied West Bank and East Jerusalem, besieged Gaza and Jordan.

That includes nearly $850 million for its core budget, which includes running schools and health clinics.

According to UNRWA, donors on Friday announced $812.3 million in pledges, but just $107.2 million were new contributions. The countries pledging new funds were not announced.

Lazzarini told a press conference Thursday that UNRWA needs $150 million to keep all services running until the end of the year, and an additional $50 million to start 2024 without liabilities.

In addition, he said, the agency needs $75 million to keep the food pipeline in Gaza operating and about $30 million for its cash distribution program in Syria and Lebanon.

UNRWA has faced a financial crisis for 10 years, but Lazzarini said the current crisis is "massive", calling it "our main existential threat".

"It is deepening, and our ability to muddle through is slowly but surely coming to an end," he said.

"The situation is even more critical now that some of our committed donors have indicated that they will substantially decrease their contribution to the agency."

UN Secretary-General António Guterres said in a speech read by his chief of staff at the start of the pledging conference that "when UNRWA’s future hangs in the balance so do the lives of millions of Palestine refugees relying on essential services".

“While we are grateful for the pledges announced, they are below the funds that the Agency needs to keep over 700 UNRWA schools 🎒 + 140 clinics 🩺open from September onwards,”

🎙️ UNRWA Commissioner-General @UNLazzarini
highlights remaining funding gap. #forPalestineRefugees

— UNRWA (@UNRWA) June 2, 2023

Those services include education for over half a million girls and boys, health care for around two million people, job opportunities for young people in Gaza and elsewhere, psychosocial support for hundreds of thousands of children, and a social safety net for nearly half a million of the poorest Palestinians, he said.

More than 1.2 million Palestinians also receive humanitarian assistance.

The UNRWA pledging conference came after a spokesperson for Guterres in late May said the UN's food assistance scheme in Gaza would exhaust its funds unless more money arrives soon.

"The World Food Programme says they're facing a critical situation in Palestine, with the suspension of assistance to over 200,000 people set to take effect in June if funding is not secured urgently," the spokesperson said.

He further cautioned that the organisation may have to completely halt its work by August.

"That means that 350,000 of the most vulnerable and food-insecure Palestinians will be deprived of assistance that allows them to feed their families," he was quoted as saying by Haaretz.