UNRWA STAKEHOLDERS DEBATE PALESTINE REFUGEE

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 04 AMMAN 009468

SIPDIS

E.O. 12958: DECL: 11/04/2014
TAGS: PREL PREF EAID IS SY LE JO
SUBJECT: UNRWA STAKEHOLDERS DEBATE PALESTINE REFUGEE
DEVELOPMENT PLAN AHEAD OF DISENGAGEMENT

REF: A. AMMAN 9013

B. TEL AVIV 5436

Classified By: ACTING DCM CHRISTOPHER HENZEL FOR REASONS 1.4 (B) AND (D
).


1. (C) SUMMARY. UNRWA,s stakeholders endorsed a
controversial plan to strengthen the Agency,s governance
bodies by 2006 at their fall major donors meeting. They also
gave conditioned backing to the Agency,s decision to launch
its own ambitious USD 1 Billion five-year Medium Term Plan
(MTP). Responding to demands for information on this and
other opaque Agency planning efforts, UNRWA broke its
practice of showcasing projects at Major Donors, Meetings
and devoted this meeting to explaining how it had formulated
its five-year plan and a new emergency appeal for Gaza/WB.
But it failed to convince donors its MTP is already in line
with reforms that a high-level conference Switzerland hosted
in June. USDEL head PRM A/S Dewey warned other donors they
could not rely on the U.S. to continue funding almost 25
percent of UNRWA,s emergency appeals, but joined them in
urging ComGen Peter Hansen to delay launching the MTP to
incorporate the Geneva Conference,s key findings, arguing
"buy-in" is crucial . Dewey visited UNRWA installations
immediately after the MDM to examine the needs described in
the MTP. Reftels report additional meetings he held to try
to repair Israeli-UNRWA relations and to identify a successor
to Hansen. END SUMMARY.

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NOT YOUR TYPICAL MAJOR DONORS MEETING
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2. (SBU) UNRWA hosted its traditional informal fall meeting
of donors and Palestinian refugee-hosting nations in Amman
October 13-14, adopting an unusual agenda in response to
donor concerns. Sensing that the so-called "Geneva
Conference process" (a high level international meeting
Switzerland hosted in June to evaluate UNRWA operations and
foster cooperation among UN agencies providing services to
Palestinian refugees) had created the first real opening to
press for direct oversight of the Agency in years -- and
alarmed by rumors that the ComGen was planning a December
pledging event for a largely in-house drafted five-year plan
-- UNRWA,s major donors had joined forces in the run-up to
this MDM (with the quiet backing of Jordan, Syria and
UNRWA,s own progressive Deputy ComGen and External Relations
Director). Using five meetings UNRWA held in Amman and
Jerusalem to finalize the conference report, they demanded
that Hansen include two unprecedented items on the agenda: a
debate on the need to revitalize UNRWA,s governance bodies
and a substantive review of its current budget planning
assumptions and methodologies. Two serious topical issues
raised by delegates over the two-day meeting - the ramp up of
IDF operations in north Gaza camps and a troubling interview
the ComGen gave on the eve of the meeting in which he
asserted that members of Hamas were on UNRWA,s payroll -
failed to politicize the proceedings, due in part to the
determination of key stakeholders to show a united front on
their expectations to see changes in the way UNRWA operates.

CONTROVERSIAL GOVERNANCE REFORM PROCESS ENDORSED
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3. (SBU) The key outcome was secured in the governance
session, which the majority of stakeholders used to endorse a
controversial new "Working Group on Stakeholders Relations"
(WGSR). Local Agency watchers created the WGSR in September
through a process suggested by the Geneva Conference
organizers and that progressive UNRWA officials pushed
forward. In what most donors hope will be a first step
towards establishing direct oversight, the new group has been
charged with evaluating the Agency,s existing governance
bodies (i.e., its UNGA-mandated Advisory Commission, NY-based
Finance Committee and the informal MDM) and recommending a
structure that "meets donor and host nations, needs" by the
next MDM, which is scheduled for May. The deadline builds in
time to table any UNGA resolutions that might be needed to
modify the AdCom early in 2005. However, this hard-won
workplan nearly unraveled when the EC discovered that UNRWA
had made a last-minute change to the group,s terms of
reference that would have
limited its ability to look at other UN agencies, for
potential models -- a change UNRWA claimed it had made to
respond to strong Lebanese, Syrian and PLO opposition to the
creation of new bodies that might change UNRWA,s mandate.
Japan unexpectedly used the opening to oppose the creation of
any group that might be empowered to remove it from the
AdCom, but timely interventions by Jordan and Syria (which
favor revitalizing the AdCom) supporting the original terms,
and reminding delegates that any change to the AdCom would
require UNGA approval, prevented the discussion from
deteriorating further. To help ensure the WGSR looks beyond
UNRWA for effective structures, Switzerland is offering to
fund two consultants to assist the group with its study.

US URGES DONORS TO RESPOND TO 2005 GAZA/WB APPEAL
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4. (SBU) As the intifada drags on into its fifth year,
coping mechanisms are being exhausted, poverty and
unemployment are soaring, and emergency needs are increasing.
UNRWA Gaza and West Bank field directors briefed donors on
the 2005 emergency appeal the Agency intends to launch in
late November to maintain food, cash assistance, job creation
and re-housing programs, as well as mobile health clinics, to
the 1.6 million refugees in Gaza and West Bank hardest hit by
the ongoing conflict. The session confirmed that UNRWA is
responding to donor suggestions that it move its longer-term
interventions,
such as its psychosocial programs, from its emergency appeal
to its regular budget. UNRWA also reported that it is
starting to adopt a needs-based approach to plan its
emergency programs, rather than budgeting based on what UNRWA
thinks donors will contribute. A needs-based budget would
likely result in a larger emergency appeal, since UNRWA has
not budgeted to meet the full food and other emergency needs
of the refugees in West Bank and Gaza. However, the 2003
emergency appeal was only 50 percent funded, while the 2004
appeal has not yet attained even that level of response.
There were no indications at the MDM that donors will be more
forthcoming to UNRWA,s 2005 appeal. A/S Dewey called on
donors to share the burden of funding UNRWA,s emergency
appeals, noting that the U.S. is doing far more than its
share and cannot be expected to keep doing so.

MTP: UNRWA AGREES TO DELAY LAUNCH
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5. (C) Donors cautiously supported UNRWA,s proposed plan to
launch an ambitious 2005-2009 "Medium Term Plan" -- a USD one
billion development strategy for Palestinian refugees in the
region designed to support Roadmap provisions by ensuring the
Agency hands over "assets, not liabilities" when a peace
agreement is reached. Most donors acknowledged that UNRWA,s
plan to build needed schools, medical clinics, housing, and
to fund other programs to keep pace with the significant
education and health sector investments that host nations
like Jordan and Syria are now making -- is overdue, but urged
ComGen Peter Hansen to delay his plan to launch the MTP as
early as December. A/S Dewey had privately told Hansen at a
breakfast October 14 that the U.S. and other donors would not
buy into the MTP until we were satisfied with the product.
According to UNRWA External Affairs Director Andrew Whitley,
the EC also held out the possibility of a five-year
commitment to the MTP provided UNRWA assured donors that the
Agency was undertaking the process of implementing the
critical operational reforms recommended at the Geneva
Conference.


6. (SBU) Most donors also made it clear during the meeting
that they wanted to see a commitment to adopt the most
critical operational changes the Geneva meeting had
recommended before they fully committed to large new
programs. Noting that UNRWA had canceled a pre-MDM briefing
on the formulation of the MTP, and had only unveiled the
revised plan the day before the MDM, donors universally urged
the Agency to revise the plan after a systematic effort to
identify and to cost the most critical, actionable reforms
had been finalized. The Agency failed to allay those
concerns by sharing an in-house assessment of the conference
recommendations it was already implementing because follow-up
activities for many of those recommendations had not yet been
identified/costed.


7. (SBU) Syria appealed for any harmonization effort to be
completed quickly, reminding donors that some of the more
ambitious development efforts described in the MTP are based
on ongoing pilot projects, such as the re-housing projects in
the Neirab and Ein el Tal camps near Aleppo (currently being
funded by Canada, the U.S. and Switzerland),that had
required six years of intensive negotiation with camp leaders
who initially opposed the project on grounds it would
jeopardize the right of return. At an ad hoc meeting of
donors held immediately after the MDM, Sweden, Switzerland
and the EC agreed to offer consultants to ensure the process
of melding the Geneva Conference recommendations and the MTP
into one document no later than March, when UNRWA starts
preparing its 2006-2007 biennium budget. Deputy
ComGen Karen AbuZayd confirmed in a separate post-MDM meeting
with Switzerland, the EC, Sweden and the U.S. that Hansen had
agreed to delay the MTP rollout until spring.

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A/S DEWEY EXAMINES APPEAL AND MTP DURING FIELD VISITS
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8. (U) A/S Dewey visited UNRWA installations in the West Bank
and Jordan immediately after the meeting to examine the
critical needs described in UNRWA,s draft 2005 emergency
appeal and MTP. In Jerusalem, he toured the separation
barrier, met the Director of the West Bank Field, and
discussed access issues with USG-funded operation support
officers who verify that UNRWA installations are not being
used improperly and who facilitate the access of mobile
health clinics, food distributions and other UNRWA services.
He also met the West Bank Field Education, Health and Relief
and Social Services Department Directors who anecdotally
reported that they were struggling to respond to requests
from refugees who had been able to afford private health care
and education as recently as 2003. The Education Director
made a specific appeal to maintain funding for his field,s
tolerance promotion program, arguing that it could be
effective in the current environment but was undercut by the
fact that it only had resources to target children under 10.


9. (U) In Jordan, A/S Dewey visited UNRWA,s Jerash, Baqa,a
and Jabel Hussein camps, and also compared UNRWA schools in
Amman neighborhoods with large populations of registered
refugees to government schools in adjacent neighborhoods, to
examine two endemic problems the MTP has identified as
factors that could potentially undermine the future capacity
of Palestinian communities in the region: the fact that basic
infrastructure in many of the camps has not been improved nor
repaired since they were established in 1948 and 1967,
exposing residents to severe overcrowding and environmental
health problems, and the fact that UNRWA education and health
standards are falling. The Jerash camp, which is populated
by Gazan refugees who do not hold Jordanian nationality and
have consequently been neglected by Jordanian authorities
until very recently, for example, still has open sewers, and
many of its shelters are in need of repair. Touring schools
in two areas of Amman with the UNRWA Jordan Field Director,
A/S Dewey heard how the Agency is struggling to keep up with
investments Jordan has started to make to create an
IT-literate population. Jordan,s Education Ministry, for
example, has started introducing computer science to grades
7-10, equipping schools with state of the art labs, as well
as separate labs for other sciences. UNRWA has a policy of
using host nation curricula but has been unable to expand or
introduce computer science programs due to lack of funding
for equipment and the basic space constraints that exist in
most of the 177 schools it operates in Jordan. Ninety-two
percent of the UNRWA schools are run on double shifts in
Jordan (compared to 15% of government schools) and one in
four are housed in rented
premises (usually converted apartment buildings) that tend to
be too cramped to establish libraries and suffer neglect as
landlords hope to drive UNRWA out of long-term leases.


10. (C) COMMENT: The majority of delegates seemed to
recognize that this MDM was being held at a critical period
in the Agency,s history: for the first time in years, donors
are making progress toward establishing a greater say in the
way the Agency conducts business. UNRWA has also started a
good-faith effort to look beyond its three-year mandate and
come up with a strategy to reverse the deterioration in the
standards of health, education, vocational training, housing
and other services it provides 4.2 million Palestinian
refugees in the region, recognizing that if they handed these
communities over now they would represent a net liability.
Twenty years ago donors provided $200 per registered refugee.
Today they provide $70 per registered refugee. That
under-funding is perpetuating, and in some cases creating,
conditions that could undermine future development by forcing
the Agency to cut back programs at a time when host nations
have finally made inroads among refugee leaders who opposed
development on the principle that it compromised the right of
return. Our consultations with other major donors suggests
there is real potential for MTP burden sharing. The EC,
Sweden and Switzerland have already devoted resources to
ensure the plan is harmonized with reforms that would be a
prerequisite for them to fund a major new program by March,
privately acknowledging that they fear fueling the suspicion
and resentment that is already directed towards the
humanitarian community in the region by failing to respond to
a landmark appeal that UNRWA appears determined to launch in

2005. The MTP is estimated to cost one billion USD over five
years, or USD 200 million/year on average. Contributing 25
percent of the MTP (the traditional U.S. share of UNRWA
funding) would cost us $50M/year from FY 05 through FY 09
above our regular contribution to UNRWA. It is a significant
amount, but strong USG support for UNRWA continues to meet
two primary U.S. interests -- addressing the humanitarian
needs of Palestinian refugees and laying the groundwork for a
successful peace process.


11. (U) PRM PDAS Richard Greene cleared this message.

HALE