European Commission Contributes over EUR 11 million to UNRWA

The European Union is UNRWA’s largest multilateral donor © UNRWAOn 5 October 2012, the European Commission’s Humanitarian Aid and Civil Protection department (ECHO) announced a contribution of over EUR 11 million to the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA).

The contribution will strengthen the Agency’s work supporting the most vulnerable in Syria, Lebanon and the occupied Palestinian territory, and will help ease the pressure on its humanitarian programmes at a time when the needs of the Agency’s beneficiaries are growing.

The contribution will be allocated as follows:

· EUR 1.5 million to UNRWA’s emergency work in Syria where an estimated 225,000 Palestine refugees are directly affected by the conflict;

· EUR 6 million for food aid in Gaza where more than 735,000 refugees are food-insecure or vulnerable to food insecurity;

· EUR 1 million for food aid for the approximately 26,000 displaced refugees in Nahr el-Bared Camp in Lebanon;

· EUR 215,000 for UNRWA’s protection programmes in Lebanon to safeguard and advance the rights of Palestine refugees;

· EUR 750,000 for key protection areas in the West Bank, including forced displacement and the empowerment of communities at risk;

· EUR 2 million for UNRWA’s job creation programme to relieve economic hardship for 26,000 refugee families in the West Bank.

The latest ECHO funds follow an earlier contribution to UNRWA of EUR 8.75 million for humanitarian relief in the occupied Palestinian territory and EUR 1.215 million for the Agency’s work in Lebanon.

*************
UNRWA is a United Nations agency mandated to provide assistance and protection to a population of some 5 million registered Palestine refugees in various countries throughout the Middle East. Its services include education, health care, relief and social services, camp infrastructure and improvement, microfinance and emergency assistance.

The European Union is UNRWA’s largest multilateral donor. In the past 11 years, the EU has provided over EUR 1.3 billion in support of UNRWA’s work.

Source: UNRWA’s Press Release

Tagged under