Gaza Schools Run by U.N. Agency Face Closure Over Funding Shortfall U.S. has frozen tens of millions of dollars as it presses changes to the agency’s mandate
https://www.wsj.com/articles/gaza-schools-run-by-u-n-agency-face-closure-over-funding-shortfall-1534439632?cx_testId=16&cx_testVariant=cx&cx_artPos=5&cx_tag=contextual&cx_navSource=newsReel#cxrecs_s
U.N.-run schools that educate hundreds of thousands of Palestinian children may not be able to operate for the full school year, officials said, pointing to a funding shortfall as the U.S. freezes tens of millions of dollars and presses changes to the agency’s mandate.
The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East, known as Unrwa, operates 711 schools attended by 526,000 refugee girls and boys in the Palestinian territories and neighboring countries such as Jordan and Lebanon.
On Thursday, the agency said it will reopen schools on time for the new term that starts in weeks but only has funding to run its services until the end of September.
“We need a further $217 million to ensure that our schools not only open but can be run until the end of the year,” Pierre Krähenbühl, commissioner-general of Unrwa’s advisory commission, said in a statement.
The U.S., its largest donor, contributed $368 million last year to an overall budget of $1.24 billion. Washington has only released about $60 million this year.
The Trump administration wants other countries to step up and fund the organization, and if they’re not willing to, the U.S. hopes they will support changes to the organization’s mandate. Such changes can only be made at the U.N. General Assembly, and the last time Unrwa’s mandate was up for renewal, in 2016, 167 out of 193 member states voted in favor of extending it, making garnering enough support to change it highly unlikely—a point American officials concede.
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