Doha: Commissioner-General of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA), Philippe Lazzarini, has lauded State of Qatar for extending strong support to the agency especially at its tough time.
“We have been receiving very strong support from the Qatari government. They were first one to step in very strongly in 2018. I am here in Doha to hold talks on future partnership and I am very confident that the partnership between Qatar and UNRWA will be further strengthened,” Philippe Lazzarini told The Peninsula during his recent visit to Qatar. He said that Qatari people have showed great support and solidarity for Palestinian refugees.
Speaking about the challenges of UNRWA, he said that the Agency is facing financial problem. “COVID-19 brought a number of challenges like conducting so many screenings of coronavirus. We are also forced to readdress the ways of providing the services for example, health services have been shifted into telemedicine, classroom education has been converted into e-learning and relief projects have been transformed into home deliveries of food assistance to the people,” said Lazzarini.
He said that UNRWA was mandated to provide educational, health and social services to 5.8 million Palestinian refugees in West Bank, East Jerusalem, Gaza, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon.
“We have half-a-million boys and girls attending UNRWA schools, more than half of them are in Gaza others are in West Bank, East Jerusalem, Lebanon and Syria,” said Lazzarini.
He said that UNRWA focuses on how to overcome the problems of education such as lack of connectivity and provisions of devices to ensure the proper e-learning of the students.
During his visit, Lazzarini signed a memorandum of understanding (MoU) with Qatar Red Crescent Society (QRCS) on November 3, to work together to provide diverse forms of humanitarian support for Palestinian refugees.
Giving details of the MoU, Lazzarini said: “We - UNRWA and QRCS - signed partnership agreement for three campaigning events for fund raising.
Now we are planning to launch it, the first one will start in November this year and two other events will take place in 2021. We will be using QRCS platform to reach out to Qatari people.”
He said that the agreement is very important because the needs of Palestinian refugees increased significantly especially during COVID-19. “We aim for the campaign in November to raise $1m donation to support the winterisation programme for Palestinian refugees in Gaza,” said Lazzarini.
