UNRWA forty-five years later.

Created on 8 December 1949 by UN General Assembly resolution 302 (IV), UNRWA is a temporary organization which has existed for 45 years. The paradox between its temporary nature and the duration of its mandate illustrates the extraordinarily complex and unique character of the Palestinian refugee problem.

The case of the Palestinian refugees is unique at least in modern times and as far as duration is concerned. With time, their initial flight has become a de facto exile, and the Palestinians' exile or return has depended on the exile or return of the Jews to what has become the State of Israel. It was this that forged the framework of UNRWA's humanitarian mandate, imposing its deployment, development and adaptation according to the needs of the Palestinian populations concerned. And it was this exclusive attitude on both sides which was ended by the Oslo Agreements.

The mandate

General Assembly resolution 302 (IV) established UNRWA, recognizing "that continued assistance for the relief of the Palestine refugees is necessary to prevent conditions of starvation and distress among them and to further conditions of peace and stability...".

In addition, UNRWA was charged with carrying out in collaboration with local governments the direct relief and works programmes, as well as with consulting with "the interested Near Eastern Governments concerning measures to be taken by them preparatory to the time when international assistance for relief and works projects is no longer available".

UNRWA is therefore a subsidiary organ of the United Nations and it is the General Assembly which, every three years, has renewed its mandate and modified it on several occasions since 1950. On an annual basis, it reviews the resolutions related to the Agency and its operations.

Over the years, this mandate appears to have evolved flexibly according to developments in the region, accommodating itself to the needs generated by each situation. It also appears that the international community did not hesitate to entrust UNRWA with broader responsibilities, whether regarding its programmes, the range of its operations or the categories of its beneficiaries. The Agency's position has always been that its mandate is flexible, thus it is readily adaptable to meet emergencies as they arise.

It is often mentioned that the Agency is responsible for refugee camps in the Middle East. This is incorrect and tends to downplay UNRWA's role. In fact, the Agency's mandate pertains to Palestinian refugees wherever they are, in camps or elsewhere. Above all, the Agency looks after human beings.

It became increasingly clear from the mid-fifties that the general development of the Middle East situation augured badly for an imminent settlement of the refugee question; moreover, a possible return of the refugees was becoming problematical with the growth and consolidation of the State of Israel and as the permanent resettlement of those refugees in their host countries was refused. UNRWA therefore chose the only option left open: concentrating on the education and training of refugees. By emphasizing individual training, the Agency could give the means of securing a future for those men and women in the rest of the Arab world, where human resources were needed for development.

The conjunction in time and space of the developmental needs of the Arabian Peninsula States, stimulated by oil prosperity, and UNRWA's special efforts for education and training of refugees was to bring advantages to the whole region which are unanimously recognized today.

With this human dimension decided upon very early on and with education, health and social services provided to the most destitute, UNRWA has had to adapt to the trials and tribulations which have marked the region for more than half a century. In the aftermath of the June 1967 war, UNRWA was asked by the international community to help displaced persons in need of assistance. The Agency thus broadened its mandate to cover a category of Palestinians who were not 1948 refugees. After 1967, when former mandatory Palestine had passed in its entirety under the control of Israel, UNRWA emerged increasingly as the tangible expression of the international community, concern for the Palestinian population as a whole, not just for the 1948 refugees. This concern to entrust the Agency with the humanitarian problems of the entire Palestinian population became clear at the beginning of the Intifada in the Occupied Territories in December 1987, with the creation of a new UNRWA programme. In fact, following a report submitted by the UN Secretary-General to the Security Council, in accordance with Council resolution 605 of 22 December 1987, UNRWA established a Refugee Affairs Officer Programme charged with the relief, on the humanitarian level, of the victims of violence resulting from the uprising of the occupied populations of the West Bank and Gaza. The Agency was called upon as well to work indiscriminately to address the needs of refugees and non-refugees alike.

Finally, immediately after the Persian Gulf War in 1991, the international community once again entrusted UNRWA with the task of distributing emergency food aid to the Palestinian populations of the Occupied Territories, who were severely distressed by more than six weeks of almost general curfew, without distinction between refugees and non-refugees. This operation--whereby more than 80,000 tonnes of food was distributed to the whole of the needy population of the West Bank, Gaza and Jerusalem--spotlighted UNRWA as the perfect instrument for channelling aid from the international community directly to the Palestinians, refugees and non-refugees.

Today

The peace process--from the Madrid Conference, followed by the Oslo Agreements and all the bilateral and multilateral negotiations--has, as expected, deeply modified the terrain of UNRWA operations and the references on which its mandate hinges. The key element of this change is the mutual recognition Israelis and Palestinians have granted each other. This is a truly Copernican revolution after over 40 years of exclusive affirmations and claims, but there is still some progress to make in peoples' minds in order to produce the fruits of peace.

It is also a revolution for UNRWA which has had to follow the narrow option of the human dimension from the beginning, navigating between the exclusive attitudes of all parties concerned. Since 1967, the Agency has seen its mandate stretched nearly to breaking-point by the international community, because almost all Palestinians had become "refugees" as it were, in their own land, and thus the distinction between refugees and non-refugees had gradually lost its practical if not juridical logic.

But, from now on, UNRWA can see the Palestinian population, for whose social and humanitarian well-being it has been responsible, taking its destiny into its own hands. As a result of these radical changes, UNRWA decided, in the weeks following the signature of the Declaration of Principles, to launch a new programme primarily intended for the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

The Peace Implementation Programme was immediately a great success with the major donors and, within a few months, the Agency received nearly $90 million, followed by $10 million for Jordan, Syria and Lebanon. The projects included in this Programme certainly come within the scope of the Agency's traditional operations, but their scale and the importance given to educational, medical and social infrastructures indicate a more definite tendency towards development, at least in the West Bank and Gaza.

At the beginning of my mandate in 1991, I set up an Income Generation Programme in the form of repayable loans granted for small enterprises, in regions where the need was the most urgent. Priority was given to Gaza and the West Bank, both seriously affected by the consequences of the Persian Gulf War. This programme, which was partly aimed at compensating for the almost total lack of a structured banking network, has been remarkably successful. The same is true of the social development sector--particularly for women--and health, where activities are more closely adapted to social and community needs in each of UNRWA's five fields of operation in the Near East.

Because the dynamic force now set in motion will inevitably lead somewhere, with no possible return to the status quo ante, the Agency itself must now consider the conditions and circumstances which should prevail during the transitional period leading to its own disappearance, when the time comes.

Created to relieve the social problems which arose from the Palestine tragedy, UNRWA has lived through all the tragic events which have riddled the history of this people, in osmosis with the Palestinian community for over half a century. With this intimacy with Palestinian identity, built up over the years as the operational infrastructure was set up, and the professional relations organized and codified through the multiple services provided by the Agency--with over 20,000 employees today, 99 per cent of them Palestinians--UNRWA has acquired a totally atypical structure within the United Nations system.

In other words, the Agency has been a refuge, a shelter for an entire people in exile, as well as a window on the world for them. Since this people now has a recognized identity, with administrative structures at work in a determined territory, and intends to deepen and pursue its quest for self-determination and sovereignty on part of what was once Palestine, and since it has quasi-governmental and administrative organs in a position to receive and use international assistance, UNRWA tends to see its exclusive role being reduced with regard to development aid and humanitarian action.

In preparing for its dissolution, the Agency is faced with three major problems. The first concerns the organized and planified hand-over of its daily operations to the entitled authority when the Agency's raison d'etre as operational intermediary disappears. This moment will come when the interested parties resolve the issue of the 1948 Palestine refugees and when the Palestinians, on their own territory, feel the time is right.

The second problem concerns the documentary facet of the Agency's activities. For 45 years, UNRWA has been accumulating documentary resources and archives of inestimable value for all those who will be entrusted with managing the implementation, in the new pacified situation, of the complex terms of the agreement to be defined. The Agency must therefore begin to put its documentary heritage in order.

The third problem, ultimately, is the successful completion of the final period of UNRWA's existence. It seemed appropriate to me, in accordance with the five-year interim period envisaged by the Declaration of Principles in Oslo, to fix a financial horizon for the needs of the Agency for the same duration. This financial plan was therefore submitted to the major donors in March 1995 in Amman. It should enable the international community to make a fully informed decision with a view to the renewal of UNRWA's mandate and, in the mid-term, to its eventual disappearance.

After almost half a century of activities in the Middle East, UNRWA has certainly succeeded, by giving an important place to human development, and in maintaining and sustaining the identity of a population which has probably suffered the most from the tragedy which has torn the Middle East apart since the Second World War. By doing this, the Agency has doubtless contributed to safeguarding the chances of peace which took such a long time to hatch and is still not fully fledged. All things considered, this option to back individual training has been the best way of preparing to secure peace.

New appointment

Peter Hansen of Denmark assumed the post of Commissioner-General of UNRWA on 22 January, succeeding Ilter Turkmen of Turkey, who retired after five years as Commissioner-General.