BADIL Resource Center for Palestinian Residency and Refugee

Assistance
and equipment in schools and training centres. Other forms of community support include donations in kind of equipment, furniture
and supplies. Refugees participate in environmental health programmes through self-help projects such as paving pathways and
drains in refugee camps; they also make modest payments for connection to sewerage and water systems installed in camps.
Impact of budget shortfalls
Chronic budget shortfalls have led to 75% of UNRWA schools operating on double shifts (this means that means that two separate
schools share the same building), 93 reliance on unsatisfactory rented buildings, 94 over-crowded classrooms, 95 resulting in reduced
teacher/student interaction and higher workloads for staff, difficulties in hiring qualified teachers at existing salary scales, inability to
keep up with educational reforms introduced by host governments, suspension of post-secondary scholarship assistance, 96 reductions
in maintenance allocations, and cuts in allocations for vocational training, equipment and supplies.
Where health services are concerned, donor shortfalls have resulted in strict controls being placed on referrals and duration of hospital
stays in some areas, and some redeployment of contracted beds from the private sector to less expensive NGO hospitals, below
average per capita expenditure on health services, a higher number of patients per health personnel, and difficulties in maintaining
competitive salaries for recruiting high-quality health-care professionals. The World Health Organization (WHO) found that the Agency
would need to increase its spending by US $10 per capita in order to sustain current services and address new priorities. It also
recommended improvements in UNRWA’s “nutrition, non-communicable disease care, mental health, staff training, research, disability,
cancer prevention and psychosocial support.” 97 If the discrepancy between health needs and funding perseveres, “the quality of
services could deteriorate and the Agency’s achievements in health care could be compromised, especially in the OPT, where there
was more than a 60% increase in the utilization of the Agency’s general clinic services over pre-crisis levels .”98
UNRWA is also unable to provide relief and social service assistance to all of those refugees who need their services. The Agency
has also been forced to adopt increasingly stringent criteria for special hardship cases, limit special cash assistance in case of acute
crises, 99 and limit much-needed shelter rehabilitation. Agency social workers have an excessively high client caseload. 100
Table 3.8: Selected Indicators for Impact of Donor Shortfalls to UNRWA, 2005–2006
West
Bank
Gaza
Strip
Jordan Lebanon Syria All Fields
% schools on double shifts 23.7 77.2 91.5 63.2 97.4 75.2
% schools in rented premises 15.1 0 25.4 43.7 8.7 16.4
% classes with 48+ students 2.5 18.7 11.3 2.7 15.6 12.5
No. daily consultations per doctor 108 95 92 83 N/A 95
Sources: Report of the Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, 1 July
2004–30 June 2005. UN GAOR, Sixtieth Session, Supp. 13 (A/60/13), Tables 2 and 6, pp. 69, 70, 73. Data for the daily consultations
per doctor is from 2006.
Since the second intifada in September
2000, UNRWA has again been
forced to supplement regular services
with emergency programmes in
the 1967-occupied territory. These
have included emergency poverty
alleviation, maintenance of nutritional
safety nets, repair of damaged
shelters, provision of services to
those disabled during confrontations
with or attacks by occupying Israeli
military forces, and delivery of health
care through mobile health units.
The circumstances have also meant
ensuring emergency preparedness
with full medical supplies, adequate
Displaced Lebanese sheltered in UNRWA School during Israel’s war on Lebanon, Lebanon, July
2006. © Mahmoud Zeidan.
97