‘Palestinian’ UNRWA triples funding to world’s largest refugee agency

A’s participation Dozens of UNRWA workers -United Nations Agency for Palestine Refugees- in the brutal Hamas attack against Israel on October 7, which resulted in 1,200 dead and 240 kidnapped, Due to this, there is an increasing tendency for countries to suspend providing new funds.

spainHowever, this is an exception will maintain support This organization, after providing over 30 million of the euro under the Pedro Sánchez government between 2019 and 2023.

UNRWA was the short form of United Nations Relief and Works Agency. Created by the United Nations in 1949 To specifically serve the 700,000 refugees resulting from the Arab–Israeli war at that time, distributed among Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan.

Palestinian refugees are the only ones who have their own UN agencyAs the rest of the world looks after migrants and refugees unhcr (United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees). At the financial level there is also a series of data that attracts attention between both organizations.

While UNRWA manages an annual budget of close to $1.6 billion to serve a total of 6 million Palestinians in 5 regions, the budget of UNHCR to assist 112.6 million people in 135 countries was $10.714 million in 2022. Therefore, UNRWA has funding of about 270 euros per refugee, compared to 95 euros for UNHCR, which is almost three times as much.

Similarly, UNRWA has 30,000 staff, many of whom are Palestinians, while UNHCR has 20,305 staff, a total of 50% more. Although in relative terms the difference is very great, because in the first One worker for every 5,545 refugees, compared to one worker for every 200 refugees. Of the other. That is to say, UNRWA’s staff in relation to the population served is approximately 30 times larger than that of UNHCR.