UN Agency for Palestinian Refugees Cannot Pay Workers’ Salaries

UN-funded schools across Palestine are in danger of closing after funding problems (Wikipedia)

The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) announced on November 9 that it does not have enough money to pay the salaries of its 28,000 staff members through November and December. The UNRWA, which needs to raise $70 million by the end of the month to pay the salaries, has experienced especially acute financial difficulties ever since the Trump Administration’s 2018 decision to cut all U.S. funding to the agency.

The UNRWA, which runs health centers and schools for more than 500,000 children, increases stability in the region, and provides relief services and substantial pandemic assistance to more than 5.7 million refugees, has issued an emergency call for donations to avoid the suspension of essential services. 

Amir El-Mishal, chairman of the UNRWA’s union in Gaza, said that “any impact on the salaries of employees will bring about negative consequences on the services provided to Palestinian refugees.”

That is not the only concern. According to Commissioner-General of the UNRWA Phillipe Lazzarini, “Without their income, UNRWA staff, the vast majority of whom are refugees themselves, will see their source of livelihoods disappear, and they are very likely to descend into deep poverty.” 

The United States, which was by far the biggest donor to the agency before it removed funding, defended its decision in a press statement. It claimed that the UNRWA’s “endlessly and exponentially expanding community of entitled beneficiaries” was “simply unsustainable” and that “Palestinians, wherever they live, deserve better than an endlessly crisis-driven service provision model.”

Other donors in the Gulf, where some states recently signed U.S.-brokered normalization agreements with Israel, have also cut funding. 

Although President-Elect Joe Biden plans to restore U.S. funding to the agency, officials at the UNRWA have expressed that they cannot wait until next year to receive funding and that immediate action is necessary. 

According to UNRWA spokesperson Tamara Alfrifai, “at the centre of [the] crisis is a mismatch between the political support we get from UN member states and the financial contributions.” At last year’s General Assembly vote to renew the UNRWA’s mandate for another ten years, 169 countries voted in favor, with only nine abstentions and two votes against—from Israel and the United States.