{"id":238064,"date":"2020-07-22T10:20:12","date_gmt":"2020-07-22T14:20:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/?post_type=document&p=238064"},"modified":"2020-07-23T10:28:26","modified_gmt":"2020-07-23T14:28:26","slug":"senior-european-leaders-reiterate-call-to-support-unrwa-press-release","status":"publish","type":"document","link":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/document\/senior-european-leaders-reiterate-call-to-support-unrwa-press-release\/","title":{"rendered":"Senior European Leaders Reiterate Call to Support Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA – Press Release"},"content":{"rendered":"
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21 July 2020<\/span><\/strong><\/h6>\n
\"PRS<\/a><\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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PRS children sit in front of their rented shelter in Beddawi refugee camp, Lebanon. \u00a9 2019 Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA Photo by Maysoun Mustafa<\/strong><\/h6>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n
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Thirty-one senior European politicians came in support of the United National Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA) yesterday through a\u00a0letter<\/a>\u00a0that reiterated the essential role that the Agency plays in a highly volatile region.<\/p>\n

As Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA continues to face financial and political challenges, its health, education, social and other services offer 5.6 million Palestine refugees in the West Bank, including East Jerusalem, Gaza, Jordan, Lebanon and Syria, predictability in an otherwise very unstable environment.<\/p>\n

\u201cIn a region rife with conflicts, and now battling the health and socioeconomic impacts of Covid-19, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA stands as a vital source of regional stability,\u201d says the letter. The Agency managed to quickly shift the way it works in the initial weeks of the pandemic to help prevent a much dreaded outbreak and outspread of the virus in densely populated Palestine refugees camps. By switching to distance-learning, telemedicine and food delivery, among other measures, the virus remained largely contained.<\/p>\n

But Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA, whose mandate was renewed for another three years last December by an overwhelming majority at the United Nations General Assembly, is struggling to raise the funding it needs to continue running all its programmes. In a recent meeting with donors and host governments at the Advisory Commission, an advisory body to Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA, the Agency\u2019s Commissioner-General, Philippe Lazzarini, appealed for support to what he described as \u201ca source of stability in a highly unstable region.\u201d<\/p>\n

To date, Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA has received funding and pledges that can cover less than 50 per cent of its main budget and 60 per cent for its planned COVID-19 response. It has received even less for its emergency budgets to respond to the acute humanitarian needs in Syria and Gaza, where Palestine refugees often live in abject poverty.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

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Background Information:<\/div>\n<\/div>\n

Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA is confronted with an increased demand for services resulting from a growth in the number of registered Palestine refugees, the extent of their vulnerability and their deepening poverty. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA is funded almost entirely by voluntary contributions and financial support has been outpaced by the growth in needs. As a result, the Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA programme budget, which supports the delivery of core essential services, operates with a large shortfall. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA encourages all Member States to work collectively to exert all possible efforts to fully fund the Agency\u2019s programme budget. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA emergency programmes and key projects, also operating with large shortfalls, are funded through separate funding portals.<\/p>\n

Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA is a United Nations agency established by the General Assembly in 1949 and mandated to provide assistance and protection to some 5.6\u00a0million Palestine refugees registered with Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA across its five fields of operation. Its mission is to help Palestine refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank, including East Jerusalem and the Gaza Strip achieve their full human development potential, pending a just and lasting solution to their plight. Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA services encompass education, health care, relief and social services, camp infrastructure and improvement, protection and microfinance.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

21 July 2020 PRS children sit in front of their rented shelter in Beddawi refugee camp, Lebanon. \u00a9 2019 Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA Photo by Maysoun Mustafa Thirty-one senior European politicians came in support of the United National Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (Ä¢¹½ÊÓƵRWA) yesterday through a\u00a0letter\u00a0that reiterated the essential role that […]<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":172,"featured_media":0,"parent":0,"template":"template-page.php","meta":{"footnotes":""},"country":[],"document-category":[1329],"document-source":[1817],"committee-meeting":[],"document-subject":[1945,1745],"entity":[1729],"document-language":[],"class_list":["post-238064","document","type-document","status-publish","hentry","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-refugees-and-displaced-persons","entity-united-nations-system"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document\/238064","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\/238064\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238064"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=238064"},{"taxonomy":"document-category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-category?post=238064"},{"taxonomy":"document-source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-source?post=238064"},{"taxonomy":"committee-meeting","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/committee-meeting?post=238064"},{"taxonomy":"document-subject","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-subject?post=238064"},{"taxonomy":"entity","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/entity?post=238064"},{"taxonomy":"document-language","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.un.org\/unispal\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/document-language?post=238064"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}