In their report titled ‘Palestinians and the Search for Protection as Refugees and Stateless Persons, BADIL and the European Network on Statelessness reported about the impact of UNRWA’s financial struggles on its ability to provide assistance to Palestinians:
“Belgium’s Council for Aliens Law Litigation (CALL – an asylum appeals body) has made several decisions relating to Article 1D in recent years. In several judgments in early 2021, the CALL concluded that because of the financial difficulties faced by UNRWA, the agency, in general, was no longer able to provide adequate assistance to Palestinians in Gaza and Lebanon, and it considered that UNRWA assistance had therefore ceased for the purposes of Article 1D.”
(Source: Badil Resource Center and European Network on Statelessness: “Palestinians and the Search for Protection as Refugees and Stateless Persons”, June 2022, p. 24)
The German federal office for migration and refugees stated in a Briefing note published in 2022 that:
“The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) appealed to the international community on 19.01.22 for urgently needed funding to continue providing assistance to Palestinian refugees in Lebanon. The severe economic crisis in Lebanon has exacerbated the situation of Palestinians on the ground, according to UNRWA, particularly affecting access to food and medical care.”
(Source: BAMF – “Briefing Notes Group 62 – Information Centre for Asylum and Migration”, 24 January 2022, p. 8)
The news agency Aljazeera published an article in December 2021 about a refugee camp in Lebanon which stated:
“As Lebanon plunged deeper into one of the world’s worst economic meltdowns, the United Nations agency for Palestinian refugees (UNRWA) last week sounded the alarm about a major funding gap that could further cut access to basic services for about 200,000 Palestinian refugees.
The United Kingdom alone cut more than half its funding to UNRWA from 42.5 million pounds ($56.5m) in 2020 to
20.8 million ($27.6) this past year, while Gulf states that once contributed $200m in 2018 only provided $20m this year.
During a visit to Shatila last month, Olivier De Schutter – UN special rapporteur on extreme poverty and human rights – said camps in Beirut “suffer from a chronically decaying infrastructure as a result of competing sources of basic service delivery”.
“These communities have been living in the camps for at least three generations, and they deserve better – their right to work, own property, education,” De Schutter told Al Jazeera.”
(Source: Aljazeera, “Refugees in Shatila camp pushed to the brink amid aid crisis”, 6 December 2021)
The Newspaper The Guardian published an article about UNRWA’s financial struggles in November 2021 which stated:
“Cuts to the budget of the UN’s relief agency for Palestinian refugees – including a halving of the UK grant – means the agency is close to collapse, the head of the agency, Philippe Lazzarini, has said. The UK has cut its core grant by more than 50% from £42.5m in 2020 to £20.8m in 2021.
Lazzarini, the commissioner general of UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA), which serves Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza but also in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, said the agency was in an existential crisis due to a $100m (£74m) shortfall this year, but also because of a method of long-term funding that
has proved unsustainable.
He said the mood among Palestinians was one of distress, boiling despair and hopelessness. When the UN agency is struggling financially to deliver the most essential services it creates a deep sense of abandonment, he said.
[…] Lazzarini said UNRWA was “irreplaceable” when it came to providing education to Palestinian refugees. “It is a good question what happens to these children if we cannot educate them, and the schools are shut. There will be a void. We would enter into uncharted territory, and the question is, who will fill this gap in places like Gaza, in the refugee camps in Lebanon. We do not have the answer.”
(Source: The Guardian “UN Palestine refugee aid agency ‘close to collapse’ after funding cuts”, 5 November, 2021)
The news and information services company Thomson Reuters wrote on 8 April 2021 that:
“Palestinian refugees on Thursday welcomed the U.S. announcement that it will renew humanitarian aid, marking a break with the Trump era.
President Joe Biden’s administration said on Wednesday that it will provide $235 million to the Palestinians and restart funding for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), which assists 5.7 million registered Palestinian refugees.”
(Source: Thomson Reuters Foundation “Palestinian refugees welcome U.S. decision to restart aid”, 8 April 2021)
The British Broadcasting Company (BBC) reported in April 2021 about Biden administration’s financial assistance to UNRWA:
“US President Joe Biden’s administration plans to provide $235m (£171m) of aid to Palestinians, restoring part of the assistance cut by Donald Trump. Two-thirds will go to the UN’s agency for Palestinian refugees, UNRWA, which has suffered a financial crisis since it lost $360m of US funding in 2018.
[...] This news has come as a huge relief to Palestinians. Their economy is propped up by international donors and was left reeling by the dramatic cuts of the Trump administration.
[...] At Qalandia refugee camp in the occupied West Bank, Hassan Abu al-Eish, 85, said he had felt the effect of the cuts in aid and was left unable to afford the basics. «When Trump arrived, he stopped all the Unrwa funds and closed all the doors on us,» he commented.”
(Source: BBC News, “Biden administration to restore $235m in US aid to Palestinians”, 7 April 2021)