Roundup: Ban urges financial help to UN agency for Palestine refugees

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon on Wednesday urged donors to step up financial support to the UN agency for Palestine refugees, warning failure to fund would lead to extremism and more poverty in a region riven further by conflict.

The UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) and its 30,000 staff provide vital human development and emergency relief services to 5.2 million Palestine refugees across the Middle East, and operate 700 schools, serving 500,000 children.

The agency now faces a deficit of 81 million U.S. dollars.

"The budget uncertainties are a costly distraction," the UN chief said at a special meeting on the sustainability of UNRWA, noting that those uncertainties play with the fate of people who are already living on the edge, and add a needless extra layer of suffering and anguish.

While noting the need to put the agency on a sustainable footing, Ban said that sustainability means, in practical terms, Palestine refugees never having to question whether UNRWA schools would be open, or never doubting whether crucial medical services would be available, or the food would be on the table for dinner.

"Let us never forget the human consequences if we let Palestine refugees down: more young people driven into despair; an increased risk of extremism; more poverty, loss of hope and dignity and a Middle East region even more riven by conflict," he said.

Recalling his visit to Gaza shortly after the end of the devastating conflict in the summer of 2014, Ban said he saw first-hand how UNRWA's 252 schools went from providing quality education to 240,000 children, to offering sanctuary to 300,000 people displaced in Gaza.

Soon after hostilities ceased, UNRWA schools were remarkably up and running with barely a delay to the academic year, he said.

UNRWA has been a pioneer in providing education in emergencies, a key theme of the upcoming World Humanitarian Summit which will be held later this month in Turkey, and has developed innovative distance learning techniques for Palestine refugee girls and boys.

Pierre Krahenbuhl, head of UNRWA, told reporters Tuesday that ensuring Palestinian youth receive an education is comparable to "a global public good."

Krahenbuhl said that the potential delay of the 2015 school year due to financial shortfalls was an emotional experience for Palestinian students and their parents.

"What has to be understood in terms of the value of education for young Palestinian boys and girls is simply that it is the very foundation on which rests their hope for improved circumstances; for an ability to contribute meaningfully in their lives as they move ahead," he said.

"So, this is why we see it almost, as was expressed by one of our donors, as a global public good, the need to preserve the education that is provided by UNRWA to this young generation of Palestinians," he added.

The UNRWA was established by the UN General Assembly on Dec. 8, 1949, following the 1948 Arab-Israeli conflict, with a mandate to carry out direct relief and works programs for Palestine refugees.

The UN agency began operations on May 1, 1950. In the absence of a solution to the Palestine refugee situation, the General Assembly has repeatedly renewed UNRWA's mandate.

As a provider of public services, UNRWA provides essential services for eligible registered Palestine refugees in its fields of operation -- Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and the occupied Palestinian territory. About 4.8 million refugees are registered with UNRWA. Endit