Long-term support to UNRWA’s reform

Palestine refugees in the Near East face a complex human development and protection crisis. Poverty levels and protection threats are rising, exacerbated by the protracted crisis in the Gaza Strip and the conflict in Syria.

Despite this challenging operating environment, UNRWA has made significant progress in terms of quality and cost effectiveness of its services as a result of internal reforms. Recurrent deficits in its Programme Budget, which covers UNRWA’s core services, risk jeopardizing these achievements and represent serious risks for refugees, UNRWA and the region as a whole.

Stabilizing UNRWA’s financial situation and strengthening its protection interventions is essential to sustain the human development and protection needs of Palestine refugees.

• Resource Mobilization: 5.3 Mio Palestine refugees registered in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, West Bank and Gaza.
• Protection: the most vulnerable Pal. refugees.
• Both reforms: 30’000 UNRWA employees (91% Palestine refugees themselves) and the communities in which they live.

• UNRWA’s ability to carry out its mandate is safeguarded by securing adequate and predictable financial resources; and
• Refugees’ rights under international law are increasingly protected and promoted.

Resultados previstos:  

• Additional funds are attracted from donors, private sector/individual donors and International Financial Institutions; predictability is increased (e.g. multi-year agreements); and UNRWA is able to bridge the 2018-20 deficits.
• Protection policies and guidelines are operationalized at field level.

Resultados de las fases anteriores:  

• The Enterprise Resource Planning System strengthened UNRWA decision-making with a state-of-the-art platform that integrates finance, procurement and human resources (Phase 1).
• The Resource Mobilization Strategy enabled UNRWA to bridge the 2014-16 Programme Budgets deficits by increasing contributions from traditional UNRWA donors (+USD 11 Mio from 2015 to 2016) and the private sector (+2); by confirming Arab countries’ commitments (+50 Mio); and by securing contributions from new donors (Russia and India).
• Through e-health, electronic files replaced paper records generating improvements in quality, efficiency and cost effectiveness (Phase 2).
• Protection was established as Strategic Outcome 1 in the Medium Term Strategy 2016-21 and key policy and guidelines were developed (Phase 3).

Fase 4 01.01.2018 - 30.06.2021   (Completed)