PRESS BRIEFING BY UNRWA COMMISSIONER-GENERAL

Press Briefing

PRESS BRIEFING BY UNRWA COMMISSIONER-GENERAL

Now, more than ever, the 50-year-old United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) had a role to play as a stabilizing force, if the final status talks on the Middle East were to yield a comprehensive and just peace.

Briefing correspondents at Headquarters yesterday on the occasion of the Agency’s fiftieth anniversary, UNRWA Commissioner-General Peter Hansen said that a much greater occasion for celebration would be the Agency’s demise, for that would mean a just, fair and lasting solution had been reached. Mr. Hansen was introduced to corespondents by Secretary-General Kofi Annan, who made an introductory statement in conjunction with yesterday’s pledging conference and fiftieth anniversary observance. That statement was issued separately (document SG/SM/7252).

Mr. Hansen said a low-key celebration had provided an opportunity to reflect upon the Agency's record. Indeed, that United Nations success story was the Organization’s "best kept secret". The Agency's work had covered five decades of unprecedented humanitarian direct assistance in the service of a single people. It had operated throughout Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the West Bank and Gaza Strip, during years in which terrible conflicts had played out on the streets where UNRWA operated. They included the original Arab-Israeli conflict, wars in 1967 and 1973, strife in Lebanon through the 1980s, and through the intifada conflicts lasting well into the 1990s.

The Agency had provided countless services to millions of people over the years, he said. As a United Nations body, its operation had reflected the Organization's recognition of the refugee problem. For many years, UNRWA was the refugees' only recognition anywhere. To them, the Agency had become an important symbol of their existence, despite their "statelessness" and lack of identity. The United Nations had recognized them and their plight and worked for them over those many years. As the Secretary-General had said, special emphasis should be given to the fact that UNRWA was the largest United Nations agency, with 22,000 staff members, 95 per cent of whom were Palestinian refugees themselves. There was also a small international staff providing the Agency with a global dimension.

The donor base was also diverse, Mr. Hansen said. Pledges from some 60 countries had ranged from a few thousand dollars to $80 million, the largest single pledge ever made to UNRWA. The warm support was heartening indeed, as was the recognition of the fact that, despite the ongoing Middle East negotiations, UNRWA was far from the point of packing up. In the very early days, the Agency had provided relief in the form of rows of tents in which some 800,000 refugees were housed. The Agency still provided relief -- to the poorest of the poor and the widow heads of households lacking any income base -- but the relief dimension of its work had been superseded by other dimensions.

That point was important to note, he said, for those who claimed that UNRWA had kept the refugees dependent on international aid. Nothing could be

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further from the truth. Indeed, among 139 international agencies recently nominated for pioneering development projects, UNRWA had been the winner. Those projects had been in such areas as micro-finance, aimed at fostering the refugees' independence by securing credit for small enterprises. As a result, thousands of refugees now had the means to create their own income and support themselves. The programme had cost the donor community nothing, as it had paid for itself.

The "works" part of UNRWA's name showed its age, as works was the word used before "development", he said. The Agency never really got on with that part of its title because it implied investment in infrastructure to settle the refugees. It became obvious, however, that they did not want to be settled but to be returned. Physical capital was not the most important thing; human capital was, namely through educational and health activities. There again, UNRWA had an impressive record of enrolling some 450,000 children in schools; 50,000 had graduated from vocational schools and college-level training institutions. Through such investment, the Palestinians had been able to rise above the level of a destitute refugee population.

The Agency's schools, dilapidated though they were, had received better results in the region on standardized national exams than any other national school systems, he went on. It was noteworthy that a public international agency was outbidding everybody else on quality and delivery. On the health dimension of the Agency's work, all of the World Health Organization (WHO) year 2000 targets had been achieved for the refugees well before the deadline. That was not likely to be the case with any other population group anywhere -– a tribute to UNRWA's primary health care programme. It also provided food aid where there was no alternative.

A correspondent asked how direct talks between the Israelis and Palestinians would affect UNRWA's work, and what else remained to be done after a possible settlement.

Mr. Hansen said that a dramatic step forward in the peace process would mean the parties were also moving closer to the day the refugee problem would be resolved. Once that was done, UNRWA could say "mission accomplished". From one day to the next, there would be transitional arrangements, but he would not speculate on their nature. Responsibility for the refugees would undoubtedly be turned over to a successor organization. The Agency would welcome any step towards a resolution, and hopefully, progress on one track would not set back progress on any of the others.

Another correspondent noted the common criticism of UNRWA throughout the years that its very success had also been its failure; that it was so good for people to live in the UNRWA camps, compared to surrounding areas, that they would never leave. She asked Mr. Hansen to comment on the recent warning by the Permanent Representative of the United States that the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees should not do the same thing in East Timor.

Mr. Hansen said that in other refugee camps people viewed their situation as temporary, whereas the Palestinian refugees did not have a place to go back to. Moreover, there had been a very large turnover in the camps. Today, only

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one third of the refugees lived in camps, as opposed to the previous 100 per cent. So the refugees had made significant progress towards making their homes outside the camps. It was not a "life in the lap of luxury" to live in the UNRWA refugee camps, as many did not have running water or sewage facilities and were basically very miserable, crowded places. In a camp next to UNRWA's offices, 72,000 people lived on one-half of a square kilometre.

Responding to a question concerning refugees in Lebanon, he noted that Palestinians could not get work permits to work in that country’s local market. There was a risk of that dependency syndrome, but hopefully the various UNRWA programmes would foster self-reliance. After peace, the Agency had no programmes to resettle the refugees. Its mandate was to provide humanitarian services to the refugees as long as there was a refugee problem. If UNRWA had speculated about where to settle, resettle or not to settle the refugees, it would have undermined its credibility with both the refugee and donor communities.

Asked about the seriousness of the financial "strangulation" of the Agency, he said it was currently operating with "zero working capital". The UNRWA was the largest employer in the Middle East, after the Government, but it virtually did not have a penny in working capital, and it was uncertain whether it could meet its December payroll. The General Assembly had approved a $320 million budget, but given the gap of $60 million to $70 million annually, the Assembly had basically wished the Agency luck in offsetting that amount through voluntary contributions.

In the 1970s, UNRWA had been able to provide $200 worth of services per refugee per year. Now that figure had been reduced to $70 per refugee per year, a decline of two thirds. For the refugees, that was clear proof that the international community was abandoning the cause and giving up on the long haul of settling the refugee issue. That had probably had a worse effect on the refugees' morale than the reduction in services. Among the Agency's real pressures was the crowding of as many as 55 children into each classroom and the maintenance of health care. A shortfall in its budget would immediately be felt by the refugees in their daily lives.

To a question concerning obstacles to employment and the advocacy role of the Agency in that regard, he said the Palestinians leaving Gaza or the West Bank had to pass through a number of checkpoints. Closures and blockages at border points made it even more difficult for workers to get a job. The lucky ones with permits, over 30 and married, had to start their day at 2 a.m. and reach the nearest checkpoint -- often by foot -- before 4:45 a.m. to start the process of getting through. Hopefully, they would cross by 6 a.m. or 6:30 in order to reach a job that began at 7 a.m. It was a very hard life.

Just last week, another case of trucks waited hours with flowers for export, he went on. Too much sun and too little rain caused the flowers to wilt and the flower growers to throw their flowers on the street in protest. The Agency's mandate did not allow it to appeal to the Israeli authorities on behalf of the flower growers. His advocacy, perhaps, lay in describing the situation. Anything else would be stepping outside his bounds.

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