UNITED NATIONS, June 4 (Xinhua) -- A senior official of the UN relief agency for Palestine refugees, the UNRWA, was confident on Tuesday that the mandate of the agency will be again renewed.
UNRWA's mandate is renewed every three years by the UN General Assembly and it will be up for renewal later this year.
"We have no indication at this point that the United States intends to seek any changes," Peter Mulrean, director of the UNRWA Representative Office in New York, told reporters.
U.S. President Donald Trump's Middle East envoy, Jason Greenblatt, has asked UNRWA to be dismantled and its duties handed over to host governments or international or local nongovernmental organizations.
"UNRWA's business model, which is inherently tied to an endlessly and exponentially expanding community of beneficiaries, is in permanent crisis mode," Greenblatt told the Security Council on May 22.
Mulrean, however, noted that the last renewal was by 167 votes in favor, one against, and nine abstentions. "So I think it would be a very tall order to seek significant changes to that."
The UN agency, officially known as the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, is a relief and human development aid body for Palestine refugees and their descendants. It currently helps more than 5 million people in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria as well as West Bank and Gaza.
The agency was confronted with its most severe funding crisis in 2018 after the United States, traditionally the largest donor, suddenly cut its funding before it completely stopped its support.
Mulrean said UNRWA was able to remain operational last year thanks to donations from other countries. However, the agency will be running out of money again by the end of June 2019. He expressed the hope that donors will come forward again at a pledging conference on June 25 in New York.
UNRWA has asked for 1.2 billion U.S. dollars for 2019, the same amount it managed to obtain for 2018.
He refused to predict how much money could be raised at the pledging conference. "I think it's a very dangerous practice to try and set a specific target for any one moment in time, given the fact that each country has its own bureaucratic procedures as to how its fiscal year works, when it can commit to money, et cetera."
But he added that there is still political support and that discussions with the primary donors are "very positive."
