Palestinian ambassador to the UN Riyad Mansour on Saturday said that a high-level international conference is expected to be held in the near future to discuss UNRWA’s financial crisis resulting from the US decision to cut aid to the Agency.
“We are waiting for the UN Secretary-General António Guterres to announce the date and place of the conference” he said expecting it to be held in New York or Geneva.
Mansour said that a meeting headed by Guterres was held on Thursday to discuss the possibility of holding an emergency conference to discuss the deficit in UNRWA’s budget.
The Palestinian diplomat expressed his hope that the conference will be able to bridge this financial gab after the US had decided to deduct $65 million from the annual aid to UNRWA.
Kuwait’s permanent delegation to the UN has paid $900000 to UNRWA as part of the Arab country’s support of the services provided by the Agency to Palestinian refugees.
The UN Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl on Monday launched a fundraising campaign entitled “Dignity is Priceless” to support the UN Agency.
UNRWA was established by a UN General Assembly resolution in 1949 to help and protect five million registered Palestinian refugees in Jordan Syria Lebanon West Bank and Gaza Strip.
UNRWA’s services encompass the fields of education health care relief social services infrastructure camp improvement protection and microcredit.
