UNRWA at 35: still helping Palestinians despite cash shortage and political tensions.

UNRWA began its operations in May 1950 by taking over some 50 camps that had been hastily put up earlier by voluntary agencies to accommodate the refugees. With 17,000 employees--the largest operation in the United Nations system--UNRWA operates in the Middle East on the basis of accords agreed with the Governments of Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Syrian Arab Republic and, since 1967, with the Israeli authorities in respect of the occupied territories of the West Bank and the Gaza strip.

Walking a tightrope in the midst of the Arab-Israeli conflict, often having to work in an atmosphere of political tension and physical violence--such as in Lebanon over the past two years--and facing a constant financial crisis due to a shortfall of voluntary contributions, UNRWA nevertheless has succeeded over the years in providing more or less uninterrupted service to the Palestinian refugees.

"UNRWA has become an established institution in its area of operations and plays a central role in the lives of the Palestine refugees registered with it", says Olof Rydbeck, who heads the Agency as its Commissioner-General, in his latest annual report to the General Assembly (A/39/13). "To the Palestine refugees, UNRWA is not only an agency which provides valued services. It is also the symbol of international commitment to their welfare and to a just resolution of their plight."

Today, a little more than two million Palestinian refugees, half of the estimated number of Palestinians, are registered with UNRWA. Thirty-five per cent of those registered live in camps in the occupied territories and in the Arab host countries. The rest live outside the camps.

In the first few years of its work UNRWA concentrated on providing relief in the form of food, shelter and clothing. However, as the refugees grew self-supporting the Agency shifted it semphasis to long-term programmes. A major change in policy was effect in 1982 when general distribution of basic rations to most refugees was suspended so that scarce resources could be directed to education and health programmes, which have higher priority in UNRWA's current programming. In 1985, education for Palestinian children will account for fully 66 per cent of the Agency's regular budget; 22 per cent will finance the health services, 10 per cent will be used for providing relief and the remaining two per cent for other costs.

Relief, Health And Education

In its relief activity, the Agency concentrates on providing for widows, orphans, the handicapped, the aged and the chronically ill, and makes available to them food rations, blankets, clothing and prosthetic devices; it also makes out small cash grants and helps refugees maintain their shelters.

In the report to the Assembly the Agency states that the continued occupation of South Lebanon and the general unrest in that country has led to a greatly increased relief operation. The report also deals with the position of more than 4,000 Palestine refugees left stranded in the Egyptian side when the border between the Sinai and the Gaza Strip was re-established in April 1982. UNRWA has sought an arrangement between the Governments of Egypt and Israel which would enable the refugees to return to the Gaza Strip and regain full access to the Agency's facilities and services.

Even while relief services continue, the Assembly, in accordance with UNRWA's changing programming emphasis, has urged Governments which have been giving contributions in the form of foodstuffs to convert them into cash assistance. The European Community and Canada have agreed to this call and recently began making contributions in cash rather than in kind. The Agency continues to solicit contributions of foodstuffs sufficient to meet the needs of the hardship cases and its supplementary feeding programme.

In 1984, UNRWA spent close to $19 million in providing eligible Palestine refugees with health services, which included provision of medical services, and programmes for supplementary feeding of babies and environmental sanitation. Under the proffessional guidance of the World Health Organization (WHO), the Agency provides medical services to some 1.7 million eligible Palestine refugees annually. UNRWA's emphasis is on preventive medicine, particularly on immunization, mother and child care at 86 centres, and health education. Curative services are available at 98 UNRWA health centres, which receive more than four million patient-visits annually. Hospital beds available to refugees number 1400.

Emphasis on Education: Without land to utilize their traditional farming skills, and with little capital to set themselves up in business, the Palestine refugees value education as their resource into the future. An understanding of their thinking has led UNRWA to emphasize education, and today the bulk of its financial outlay and human capital is concentrated in education.

Just as the health programme is coordinated with WHO, providing education for refugee children has been a joint undertaking of UNRWA and United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization (UNESCO). Since 1961, the two organizations have been operating the Department of Education for Palestine refugees. Today, it runs 653 elementary and preparatory schools in Lebanon, Syria, Jordan and the occupied teritories. A teaching staff of over 10,000 offers six years of elementary education and up to four years of preparatory education (junior secondary) to more than 342,000 refugee children. The schools follow the curriculum of the host country where they are situated; schools in the West Bank follow the Jordanian curriculum while those in the Gaza Strip follow the Egyptian system.

UNRWA has a policy of accepting all eligible refugee children who seek admission to its schools. In the last year alone, 6,038 new pupils were enrolled in UNRWA schools. Because the are not enough shcool buildings, about 75 per cent of UNRWA's 653 schools run on a double shift. Two separate schools share one building between morning and afternoon shifts. According to UNRWA officials the emergency in Lebanon even led to triple-shifting, but this has now been stopped.

According to those same officials, the quality of UNRWA's education programme has continued to improve through curriculum enrichment and continuous in-service training of teachers. They say that UNRWA pupils not only consistently outperform pupils in government shcools, but that they have continued to widen the performance gap.

Since UNRWA does not run secondary schools, refugee pupils who have graduated from the Agency's schools have to find places in government or private schools. UNRWA does provide university scholarships to a small number of the most gifted and needy students.

In addition to its schooling programme, UNRWA co-operates with institutes which enrol altogether more than 5200 trainees annually. According to UNRWA officials the skills taught are selected to correspond to the needs of the Arab world, and the graduates have sound career openings either in the host countries or farther afield.

The Lebanon Emergency

Events following the Israeli invasion of Lebanon of June 1982 led the Agency into emergency gear to cope with the serious crisis facing Palestine refugees in that country. Dealing with the deaths of refugees, destruction of refugee shelters and its own facilities, the curtailment of services, and detention of its staff, UNRWA strove to provide the basis services.

The Lebanon emergency operation became the most difficult in UNRWA's history not only beacuse of its political and military complexities but also because of the duration of the crisis. UNRAW's staff had to maintain services to the refugees and embark on reconstruction even as they reacted to fresh outbreaks of violence. The ability of the Agency to pursue its tasks in Lebanon was also hampered "by those in authority or de facto control, in a manner which runs counter to the immunities to which United Nations organizations are entitled and the accords within which UNRWA operates in its five fields", according to Commissioner-General Rydbeck, speaking before the General Assembly's Special Political Committee on 23 October 1984.

Thourghout 1983 and the summer of 1984, according to the report of UNRA mentioned above, the refugees in Lebanon, and especially southern Lebanon, lived in an atmosphere of fear due to threats to their security. While both the refugees and Lebanese citizens were victims of violence, in many instances the Palestinians were specific targets, the report states.

The emergency relief operations in Lebanon from June 1982 to March 1984, which were budgeted spearately from the Agency's regular programmes, cost a total of $62 million. The Agency is now moving into a "reconstruction phase" in Lebanon, which it says will initially require another $13 million. So far about $11 million has been received in response to the Agency's appeal for funds.

"The formidable problems in Lebanon are still cause for UNRWA's greatest concern", Commissioner-General Rydbeck told the Special Political Committee. "For some time to come, the refugees in Lebanon will require our support to rebuild their lives."

Finances

UNRWA runs primarily on voluntary contributions made by donor Governments and not on assessments levied on Member States, as do the specialized agencies and the United Nations itself. This complicates the Agency's budgetary process because at the beginning of the year the Agency is not in a position to make an accurate estimate of its income for the rest of the year. The budget therefore has to be based on assumptions which may or may not turn out to be correct. Many times during the last three decades the Agency has faced acute financial crisis and has barely managed to get by. In the spring of 1981, for example, the financial outlook was such the UNRWA made preparattions for the closure of its schools in Jordan and Syria. Only last-minute contributions made it possible to avoid such closures.

A look at the charts shows that UNRWA's income has fallen from a total of $191 million against a budget of $211 million in 1980 to an estimated $181 million against a budget of $235 million in 1984. Most of this decline has been in contributions from Governments which in 1980 provided almost 82 per cent of the budget, but as of October 1984 had pledged only 68 per cent. Officials say that UNRWA should be able to get through narrowly by cutting back on planned construction and other non-recurrent budget items, and by drawing on the cash balance at the end of 1984. In fact, UNRWA cut out $17 million of planned capital expenditure, mostly in construction. With all this, it expected to have only about $5 million in cash reserves at the beginning of 1985--less than five weeks of its operating expenses.

For 1983, UNRWA's income was $174 million, while its expenditure was $195 million. The shortfall of $20.9 million was funded by drawing on Agency assets. UNRWA's budget estimate for 1985 is $258.2 million. Out of this the cash requirements of the Agency will be $225.4 million, and this is the amount of voluntary contributions needed from the international community.

As the Agency reported early in 1984: "UNRWA is on the tightrope again. In can probably get through this year as it usually does but there is a price to be paid, and it is paid by the Palestine refugees."