UN agency calls for more Arab funds

At least 7,000 families got simple meals of chick peas, cheese and tinned meat courtesy of a Gulf benefactor.

Palestinian schoolchildren walk through the devastated refugee camp of Nahr al Bared in Lebanon.

Holed up inside a Gaza refugee camp throughout Eid al Fitr, Ali Hassan and his eight children were among the 7,000 families who got to savour simple meals of chick peas, cheese and tinned meat courtesy of a Gulf benefactor. But though such generosity is praised by Mr Hassan, 40, and fellow refugees in the camp, the amount of assistance Arab governments are donating to Palestinians is increasingly being scrutinised by the world aid community. The United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA), which has assisted stateless Palestinians since 1950, accuses Arab leaders of being tight-fisted when providing financial support. But defenders of Arab philanthropy rebuff such allegations, criticising the United Nations itself for being partly responsible for Palestinian suffering and refusing to assuage the guilt of western liberals. UNRWA does have substantial links with the Red Crescent and other Arab charities - demonstrated during Ramadan by the food parcels distributed at refugee camps. Global inflation and the Israeli blockade on Gaza's borders have seen grocery prices soar by 32 per cent this year, forcing the strip's 1.5 million residents to spend more than two-thirds of their dwindling incomes on food, according to UN figures. "The situation in Gaza is continuously deteriorating and UNRWA's help is so essential - but it is not enough," Mr Hassan said. Although charity food marginally improved camp residents' celebrations, Mieser Alshaer was in no doubt that a free Eid supper was little compensation for her daily struggle. The 48-year-old said she would only start celebrating on the "joyful day when we find a job for my husband, and we will no longer need assistance from UNRWA or any other charity". Almost six decades after its creation, UNRWA remains the biggest UN operation in the Middle East with more than 29,000 staff providing aid, health care and schooling to more than 4.6 million refugees. This year, the UN General Assembly allocated the agency US$541.8 million (Dh1.9 billion), most of which comes directly from principal donors such as the European Union, the United States, Sweden, the United Kingdom, Norway and the Netherlands. Arab governments, meanwhile, have long offered substantial support to Palestinians; most obviously during the 1948, 1967 and 1973 conflicts, but also through an ongoing political process that last month saw Saudi Arabia bring the issue of Israeli settlement-building to the UN Security Council. But Arab leaders have not been so generous when asked to dig into their pockets and provide cash support to their beleaguered brethren, according to Andrew Whitley, director of UNRWA's New York office. "Arab countries have historically paid very little to the regular budget of UNRWA's running costs," Mr Whitley said. "The Arab League has passed repeated resolutions calling for Arab countries to pay seven per cent of UNRWA's budget, but today they pay less than one per cent. "This is at a time when many of these countries have surplus oil revenues and large amounts of disposable income. They are a natural source of funding for UN activities because the Palestinian cause is so close to the hearts of people in these countries." Although the Emirates recently doubled its annual UNRWA contributions to $1m, Mr Whitley said that even by "regional standards, this is not a particularly large sum of money". The UAE defends its philanthropic record, with Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, Minister of Foreign Affairs, reminding delegates to a Palestinian donor conference at UN headquarters last month of major projects such as Sheikh Khalifa City in Gaza being undertaken by the Government. Palestinian suffering made headlines again last week with a funding appeal for reconstruction of northern Lebanon's Nahr al Bared camp, which was devastated last year by months of fighting between Lebanese forces and Fatah al Islam militants. Last week, Karen AbuZayd, UNRWA's commissioner-general, reiterated last month's $43m appeal to help provide emergency food and shelter to the 30,000 people displaced by fighting. This time, Ms AbuZayd directed her call to Arab officials, saying the United States had pledged $4.3m and a handful of European nations were mulling the request, but that no government from the region had dipped into state coffers. The agency chief urged "Arab donors to help UNRWA respond adequately to the humanitarian needs of these refugees who have endured more than their fair share of misery and displacement". Aid officials were not necessarily surprised by Arab recalcitrance, coming only months after a June fund-raising conference in Vienna during which Lebanon's prime minister, Fouad Siniora, said four Gulf states would finance half the $445m reconstruction costs of Nahr al Bared. But the countries have not made good on Mr Siniora's claim, with only $57.8m pledged so far, 91 per cent of which comes from western governments. Dr Espen Villanger, a research chief from the Norwegian institute CMI and author of Arab Foreign Aid: Disbursement Patterns, Aid Policies and Motives, said Arab donors lack the bureaucratic infrastructure to respond quickly to funding appeals. "It is about administrative capacity. These donors are not anywhere similar to western donors when it comes to handling lots of different issues simultaneously," Feda Nasser, first counsellor at Palestine's observer mission to the United Nations, said Arab governments blame the international community for what they perceive as an unjust creation of Israel in 1948 - and therefore think industrialised nations should foot the bill. [e-mail]