UNITED NATIONS — The U.N. agency for Palestinian refugees is “weeks away from painful cuts” to its emergency assistance for Gaza and refugees elsewhere because of an unprecedented gap in its budget of more than $250 million, the U.N. Mideast envoy said Tuesday.
Nikolay Mladenov told the Security Council that in Gaza, “this would include a deferral of salaries to some of its workforce in July and the start of suspending core operations in August.”
The Trump administration announced in January that it was withholding $65 million of a planned $125 million funding installment for the U.N. Relief and Works Agency. It released $60 million so UNRWA wouldn’t shut down, but made clear that additional U.S. donations would be contingent on major reforms at the agency.
Agency spokesman Christopher Gunness has said the actual cut was around $300 million because the U.S. led the agency to believe it would provide $365 million in 2018. He said UNRWA went into 2018 with a $146 million shortfall that ballooned to $446 million without the anticipated U.S. funds.
A dozen countries announced pledges of nearly $100 million in new funding for UNRWA in March, but Mladenov said UNRWA still has “an unprecedented shortfall of over $250 million.”
Copy the Story LinkSend questions/comments to the editors.
Success. Please wait for the page to reload. If the page does not reload within 5 seconds, please refresh the page.
Enter your email and password to access comments.
Hi, to comment on stories you must . This profile is in addition to your subscription and website login.
Already have a commenting profile? .
Invalid username/password.
Please check your email to confirm and complete your registration.
Only subscribers are eligible to post comments. Please subscribe or login first for digital access. Here’s why.
Use the form below to reset your password. When you've submitted your account email, we will send an email with a reset code.