Cash-strapped UNRWA unveils $1.2bn budget for 2019

JERUSALEM (AA) - Pierre Krahenbuhl, commissioner-general of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), has unveiled a proposed $1.2-billion agency budget for 2019.

According to a UNRWA statement issued Monday, the funding is needed to continue providing assistance to some 5.4 million Palestinian refugees across the Middle East and maintaining the agency’s operations at 2018 levels.

Last year, U.S. President Donald Trump cut Washington’s annual funding for UNRWA. The U.S. had been the agency’s largest contributor by far, providing it with $350 million each year -- roughly a quarter of its overall budget.

“As we faced the most severe financial challenge in our history, it was both humbling and inspiring to have witnessed the extent and generosity of the response from host and donor governments,” Krahenbuhl is quoted as saying in the UNRWA statement.

The new budget, he added, “is essential to preserving key services carried out by courageous UNRWA staff in some of the most difficult and polarized regions of the Middle East”.

“At stake are the dignity and rights of Palestinian refugees -- in particular the right to education for some 535,000 girls and boys -- as well as regional stability,” Krahenbuhl said.

He added that $750 million was needed to continue the agency’s core activities, including education, health, relief and social services.

A further $138 million, Krahenbuhl said, would be required to provide emergency aid to the blockaded Gaza Strip and the occupied West Bank (including East Jerusalem), while an additional $277 million would be needed to support the agency’s Syria Regional Crisis Emergency Appeal.

Established in 1949, UNRWA provides critical aid to Palestinian refugees in the blockaded Gaza Strip, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria.