WEST BANK (Al Jazeera) – The head of the United Nation’s aid agency for Palestinian refugees has warned that the organization is in the “danger zone” and faces potential collapse.
Philippe Lazzarini, the commissioner-general for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), told Al Jazeera the agency cannot maintain the services it provides to millions of refugees without additional funding.
“The funding for the organization has not increased in nearly 10 years,” he said.
Lazzarini arrived in Qatar on Monday for a high-level meeting aimed at shoring up financial support for UNRWA, which provides education, healthcare and other vital services to some 5.7 million registered Palestinian refugees across the Middle East.
The agency’s mission is to help Palestinian refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, and the occupied territories of the West Bank, East Al-Quds and the Gaza Strip.
Lazzarini said that refugees have been turning to UNRWA as their “only lifeline” as their needs increased due to the multiple crises in the region
“UNRWA, being weakened because of the financial crisis, is unable to meet their expectations and hence you have more distress, despair, and anger,” he said, describing the atmosphere in some refugee camps as boiling over.
“There is a total mismatch between the expected delivery and demand being given to the agency, and the resources being made available,” he said.
Last month, Lazzarini said his organization is facing an “existential” budget crisis, and appealed for urgent funding of $120mn to keep essential education, healthcare and other services running.
Despite Qatar pledging $18mn to the agency, and U.S. president Joe Biden restoring $235mn in aid to Palestinian refugees in April – reversing the decision of his predecessor Donald Trump, the situation remains dire.
The United Kingdom, the agency’s third-largest donor, has reduced its funding in 2021 from $57mn to $28mn.
“Over the last few years, what we did was a number of efficiency measures, which after that became posterity measures and started to impact on the quality of those services,” Lazzarini said.
“Today, we cannot go further without really impacting the services towards the Palestinian refugees and hence, raising the alarm bell.”
The commissioner-general said he was hoping for two outcomes from the top-level meeting being held in Doha on Tuesday.