UK donates £5m to UNRWA for Palestinians driven from Syria

AMMAN — The UK will donate £5 million to UNRWA between 2018 and 2021 under a multi-year agreement responding to UNRWA’s Syrian regional crisis emergency appeal.

During the agreement’s launch ceremony, which was held on Tuesday at the Amman New Camp, Ambassador of the United Kingdom to Jordan Edward Oakden said that the deal would benefit around 18,000 Palestinian refugees in Jordan who were previously residing in Syria before the war.

“It is most unfortunate for these refugees who have been displaced not once, but twice in their lifetime. We hope this agreement will help ease some of their pain,” he said.

UNRWA plans presented at the launch indicated that the first instalment of payments would guarantee that up to 4,500 Palestinian families in Jordan would receive winterisation packages in the form of cash assistance.

Director of UNRWA Operations in Jordan Roger Davies said during the ceremony that “today, the generous contribution will cover the needs of about two-thirds of Palestinian refugees from Syria in Jordan in the last quarter of the year, and the needs of the entire population in the first quarter of 2019”.

In remarks made to The Jordan Times, Ambassador Oakden said that the donation was “a small contribution that we hope will send a message to other countries directed at increasing — and more importantly — delivering their donations”.

He noted that the US’ decision to drastically cut back funding had left the UNRWA with “an unfairly large deficit”, making it important for other countries to “step up and contribute or increase their existing contributions to the agency”.

In further remarks to The Jordan Times, Oakden expressed his hope for meeting this year’s budget, and added that UNRWA’s long-term planning was now focused on “continuing its vital work through channels of donations other than the US”. 

The UK has already doubled their contribution to UNRWA this year to around £60 million, but the added £5 million donation was specifically assigned to address the vital needs of Palestinian refugees from Syria, 90 per cent of who are women and children.