UN Palestine agency meets Scottish Government in hope of plugging gap in UK funding

The United Nations agency which works with generations of Palestinian refugees has come to Scotland for the first time to ask ministers for vital support after the UK Government slashed its funding for the agency by £55 million.

Marc Lassouaoui, of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), visited Scotland for the first time.

Marc Lassouaoui, Outreach Europe manager of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), warned that the organisation, which provides relief to all refugees resulting from the 1948 Palestine War, is facing an £80 million gap in its financing this year due to reduced contributions from international governments.

The UK Government’s annual contribution reduced from £70 million in 2018 to £15m this year.

The agency, the only one of its kind in the world, was established in 1949 by the UN General Assembly to provides support, education and aid to those living in refugee communities in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank.

Palestinians walk past the headquarters of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Refugees (UNRWA) in Gaza City.

Mr Lassouaoui, who met MSPs this week including senior government officials and members of the cross-party group on Palestine, said that the body was having to consider whether it could pay its 20,000 staff working on the ground as teachers, doctors and other humanitarian workers in the communities.

He said: “We are a few weeks before the end of the year and we still have a £50m to £80m gap in our core activities. We have been working with the UK Government for a long time and they have been a good support for a lot of years. For us, working in the Middle East, the UK Government has an historically very strong connection. They have been partnering with us, but less so in the last few years, unfortunately, there has been a big drop in support. There is a sense from people on the ground that the UK is the mother country, so there is a sense of abandonment. We were surprised about the decision to slash funding to such an extent that has never been seen before.”

He said without extra funding, the agency will have to make tough decisions.

"What happens if we don’t pay the teachers or the doctors?” he asked. “Do we push the salaries forward into next year when we have new funding coming in? Should we increase our debts? These are the kinds of questions we have to ask.”

On its first ever visit to Scotland by the agency, UNRWA wants to increase ties, as well as hopefully garner financial and practical support from politicians in Holyrood.

He said: "The role for Scotland is as a voice. Scotland is an important player in the UK and could bring a lot of political support. That’s our message to them: that we want to work with you and if you could use part of your capital to support an agency that is worth supporting, that would be appreciated.

"We’re also looking at some areas of priority for the Scottish Government, in terms of international assistance,” he added. “We want to be able to say UNRWA are partners with Scotland.”

A large network of schools is run by UNRWA, with 550,000 children taught the national curriculum of the country where they live.

Mr Lassouaoui described one UNRWA refugee who had gone on to higher education and now works for NASA in the US and was involved with a helicopter flight on Mars – as well as the Palestinian ambassador to the UK, Husam Said Zomlot, who was also educated in an UNRWA school after being born in Shaburah refugee camp in the Gaza strip.

"It’s nice that we feel we can say, ‘yes, we do a good job’; to have those success stories we are proud of,” he says.

UNRWA has a rolling three-year mandate to to provide assistance and protection to Palestine refugees, which was renewed on Monday.

Mr Lassouaoui said: "We are essentially the government for the Palestine refugees, that’s six million people, around the same population as Scotland. People have been there for 75 years now. No-one wants to be a refugee for 75 years. I think we used to have hope, but I think now hope has been abandoned.”

"We aim at disappearing and we want to disappear – it is strange to say that, but it is true. We call on political action to solve the issues and find peace for them, the conflict has been going on for too long. We tell them: solve the political issues and we disappear, so hopefully we will, but for as long as the issues don’t get sorted, we need to support the refugees.”

More than 95 per cent of refugees from Palestine live below the poverty line – prompting many to consider taking the dangerous journey to Europe.

“What we see more and more is Palestine refugees leaving the region and trying to seek a better life elsewhere,” said Mr Lassouaoui.

A spokesperson for the Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office at the UK Government, said the UK announced a new multi-year funding agreement with UNRWA in June.

He said: “The seismic impact of the pandemic on the UK economy forced us to take tough but necessary decisions, including temporarily reducing Official Development Assistance spend from 0.7 per cent of Gross National Income to 0.5 per cent.

“The UK remains one of the largest global donors, spending over £11 billion in aid around the world in 2021. We are committed to protecting the world’s poorest and the most vulnerable, and will increase spending to 0.7 per cent once the fiscal situation allows.”

A Scottish Government spokesperson said refugees minister Neil Gray had met with Mr Lassouaoui earlier this year, in addition to this week’s meetings with officials and MSPs.

He said: “Following that meeting the Minister wrote to then Foreign Secretary Liz Truss expressing disappointment in the cut in UK funding for the important work of the UNRWA and urged UK Ministers to reinstate this crucial funding.”