The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) issued an appeal declaring that it needs $1.5 billion to fund its essential services, emergency appeals, and priority projects for Palestinian refugees in 2021.
The announcement on Thursday came as the new administration of US President Joe Biden is set to renew financial aid to the Palestinians, including UNRWA.
In 2018, the administration of former US president Donald Trump ceased funding for the agency, describing it as “irredeemably flawed.”
“Following an unprecedented financial crisis in 2020, increased despair and a sense of abandonment among Palestinian refugees, UNRWA appeals to its donors to provide the necessary funding to allow the Agency to fulfill its mandate, avert recurrent financial crises, which put the Agency’s core and life-saving humanitarian services at risk, and join efforts to collectively develop a forward-looking and sustainable vision for UNRWA,” the agency said in a statement.
According to UNRWA, of the required $1.5 billion, $806 million are needed for core services such as education, health, relief and social services, protection and infrastructure and camp improvement.
UNRWA said that it needs $231 million for emergency humanitarian assistance “in response to the devastating effects of blockade and occupation in the occupied Palestinian territory.”
The agency said it needs $318 million “to respond to the hardship caused by the Syria conflict to Palestinian refugees in Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.”
UNRWA said that “meeting the human development, humanitarian and protection needs of Palestinian refugees until there is a just and durable solution to their plight is an investment in stability in the Middle East region.”