UNRWA'S GAZA DISENGAGEMENT STRATEGY

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 AMMAN 000710

SIPDIS

DEPT FOR PRM AND NEA; PLEASE PASS TO USAID

E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/27/2015
TAGS: PREF PREL EAID KPAL IS JO
SUBJECT: UNRWA'S GAZA DISENGAGEMENT STRATEGY

REF: DECEMBER 18 REFCOORD WEEKLY AREA REPORT

Classified By: Charge d'Affaires David Hale per 1.4 (b) and (d).


1. (C) SUMMARY: UNRWA wants to start large-scale
development of its refugee camps in Gaza post-disengagement
-- using its experimental Neirab Camp project in Syria,
which is centered on re-housing refugees outside camps, as
its model. Apart from its limited experience carrying out
integrated camp rehabilitation and community development,
UNRWA concedes that some key officials at the PA Ministry
of Planning are reluctant to discuss any development
strategy that facilitates disengagement. Nevertheless,
UNRWA believes it has sufficient support from Abu Mazen to
continue camp development planning under the guise of its
draft five-year Medium Term Plan. The Agency is also
attempting to stockpile food to maintain its core
humanitarian mission in the event Gaza's borders are closed
for extended periods. UNRWA's current stores will allow it
to operate through February. END SUMMARY.

UNRWA BRIEFS DONORS ON ITS DISENGAGEMENT STRATEGY
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2. (SBU) UNRWA ComGen Peter Hansen and his Chief of
Operations/Gaza Field Director Lionel Brisson convened
donors in Jerusalem two weeks after the Oslo AHLC (ref A)
to brief them on the Agency's proposed strategy to respond
to Israel's disengagement plan. Hansen and Brisson (who
has been extended in his position until 2006, despite
Hansen's imminent departure) assured donors at that initial
December briefing that UNRWA would maintain its core
humanitarian activities during and after disengagement, in
line with the Roadmap and specific requests the Agency had
received from the PA. However, they announced a new
post-disengagement strategy for the Gaza field, centered on
starting "comprehensive" development of the eight official
refugee camps UNRWA operates in the Gaza strip. Brisson
said UNRWA would use its ongoing Neirab/Ein al Tal Camp
project in Syria as its "model," listing several Neirab
activities UNRWA would like to apply to Gaza:

-- constructing new housing, schools and other facilities
(and related electrical, sewer and water infrastructure) in
camps and in communities that would house relocated
refugees

-- expanding its small business lending programs;

-- doubling vocational training enrollment by building a
new training center in south Gaza (augmenting the one
currently in Gaza City) and creating new curricula.

Hansen argued that the donor community would need this
"macro approach" under the best or worst case scenarios the
World Bank presented at Oslo, given that 60% of Gaza's
total population are registered refugees and over half of
them live in camps that are not covered by the PA's current
development plan.

UNRWA'S CAMP DEVELOPMENT MODEL: A WORK IN PROGRESS
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3. (C) At the December briefing, Hansen argued that UNRWA
is well-placed to pursue development activities in Gaza, as
it is already constructing infrastructure outside its camps
under the terms of its long-standing EU-funded integrated
water and sewer development program, and has an existing
micro-credit program, making it the largest lender in
Gaza. However, the partly-USG funded $26 million Neirab
project that UNRWA has identified as its model has only
recently evolved into an effort to integrate house
rehabilitation with larger community development. UNRWA
implemented Neirab two years ago in order to move into new
homes the 6,000 refugees living in dilapidated second world
war-era barracks in the camp near Aleppo. UNRWA quietly
secured SARG agreement to relocate an initial 1,300
residents in an unofficial Palestinian "gathering" located
20-km away at Ein al Tal. Last March, Switzerland and Canada
(the project's lead donor) conditioned a significant part of
their contributions to Phase I construction in Ein al Tal to
ensure UNRWA added a job-creation and community development
component, concerned the Agency might inadvertently be
creating a slum given that 40-60% of the residents being
moved to Ein al Tal were "special hardship cases" --
refugees who receive regular financial and material
assistance from UNRWA, such as the chronically ill and the
disabled. Donors believe UNRWA recognizes the need to
adapt its approach, but delays in hiring project managers
from outside UNRWA's ranks have hampered efforts to revise
the implementation plan. A detailed review of the
partially revised plan that Canada, the U.S. and
Switzerland conducted jointly in December (septel) suggests
UNRWA will not arrive at an approach that will fully
satisfy donors before April.

PA REACTION TO PROPOSED CAMP DEVELOPMENT
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4. (C) UNRWA claims it has secured qualified support for
its efforts to step up camp development planning since the
Palestinian Presidential election. In a January 17 telcon,
Deputy ComGen Karen Abu Zayd told refcoord that Hansen had
discussed UNRWA's proposed response to disengagement with
Abu Mazen in a post-election meeting held in Ramallah last
week. Abu Mazen reportedly urged UNRWA to maintain its
emergency humanitarian assistance programs, fearing
conditions in Gaza would worsen in 2005 because of
disengagement. However, Abu Zayd said he also directed
UNRWA to work with the Gaza-based PLO Refugee Affairs
Department to refine and integrate its post-disengagement
development plans with PA planning, although he cautioned
that the PA had "no details from Israel." (NOTE: Hansen is
scheduled to meet PLO Refugee Affairs Department Head Dr.
Zakaria al Agha in Gaza this week. END NOTE.) Abu Zayd
conceded that the Refugee Department's role in overall
development planning remained to be seen. While Al Agha
reportedly has a close and long-standing relationship with
Abu Mazen, PLO Refugee Department DG Mohammad Abu Bakr told
refcoord January 17 that he expected Al Agha to leave the
Department for a more senior post within the PLO.


5. (C) UNRWA believes Al Agha's departure would put
integrated development planning on the back burner, given
that meetings UNRWA has held with Ministry of Planning
officials in the last two weeks have been unproductive,
according to Lionnel Brisson and External Affairs Director
Andrew Whitley, as the Ministry refuses to start any
substantive discussions with UNRWA in the absence of a
clear legal framework. Whitley, for example, said Deputy
Minister of Planning Dr. Sameh Abed and Aid Coordinator
Cairo Arafat were both "highly cynical about donors'
objectives" when Whitley raised disengagement with them
January 12. Realizing this state of play, some UNRWA
donors are working to build capacity at the Refugee Affairs
Department. Swiss Development Cooperation Gaza and West
Bank Office Deputy Head Fritz Froelich told refcoord
January 18 that he hoped to work with the Canadians to
provide sufficient funding to the PLO Refugee Affairs
Office to support it ability to play a role in development
planning for one full-time staff member and several expert
consultants "within four weeks."

UNRWA'S FUNDING STRATEGY
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6. (C) Explaining how senior UNRWA officials feel they are
"treading a fine line politically," Whitley revealed that
UNRWA's Executive Committee decided January 13 to pursue
planning under a lower profile, dropping ideas of launching
a new "disengagement appeal" in favor of securing funding
for activities already in UNRWA's draft Medium Term Plan
(MTP),such as infrastructure construction and expanded
vocational training. UNRWA is in the process of revising
the MTP. It hopes to brief donors in mid-February, and has
approached the Swiss about launching the plan in Geneva in
March. Local SDC staff would prefer to hold their response
until UNRWA assures donors the MTP reflects the
recommendations of the high-level conference participants
who met in Geneva last summer to review UNRWA operations,
as was agreed at the fall Major Donors Meeting. The cost
of UNRWA's new Gaza-related activities may still be unclear
when the MTP is released. Deputy ComGen Abu Zayd told
refcoord January 17 that UNRWA is having difficulty
determining whether they activities should be absorbed
under an amended FY 05 budget or fall under its emergency
program, which already includes a large re-housing
component. (NOTE: Refcoord will report on UNRWA's plans to
allocate the new 20M Euro grant the EU signed in December
for activities "to support Gaza disengagement," and the
results of the Hansen-Zakaria meeting, septel. END
NOTE.)

ADDITIONAL EFFORTS TO STOCKPILE HUMANITARIAN AID
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7. (SBU) In addition to its development planning, UNRWA is
trying to stockpile food and other emergency supplies in
the event Gaza's borders are closed for extended periods
during disengagement. Gaza Field Office Procurement and
Logistics Chief Olaf Mulander told refcoord January 16 that
UNRWA is in the process of completing an emergency food
distribution round for 130,000 refugee families (about
780,000 persons),but would be unable to start a second
round planned for March with current stocks. Its normal
distributions to about 80,000 disadvantaged refugees (i.e.,
the "special hardship cases"),would also be disrupted if
local millers, who supply UNRWA with flour, could not
obtain wheat shipments. Mulander said that UNRWA has been
paying $2.4 million/month in port storage and shipping
company demurrage fees to keep 844 containers carrying food
aid in Ashdot port pending screening at Karni terminal.
Another 350 containers are scheduled to arrive at Ashdot in
the next two weeks. He reported that UNRWA had been in
negotiations with the IDF to start screening containers at
the military terminal at Sofa (a practice the GOI has
agreed to do twice before during the current intifada),but
said his office had received confirmation from Israeli
authorities last week that this alternative arrangement had
"fallen through."

COMMENT
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8. (C) UNRWA has been pushing its house
rehabilitation-based approach to camp development as a
potential model for its first 2005-2009 Medium Term Plan
since June. Several donors familiar with UNRWA's first
effort to implement this approach -- its ongoing Neirab
project in Syria -- have been encouraging the Agency to
undertake an employment-based experiment before adopting
the Neirab model wholesale. With significant budgetary
support, Neirab might be an applicable model for Gaza (part
of Neirab's success has depended on the SARG's willingness
to build about $5 million in new infrastructure to support
refugees relocated to Ein al Tal). However, given UNRWA's
highly-decentralized approach to planning it is far from
certain that UNRWA's Gaza Field would agree to modify its
traditional, unilateral approach to project management and
give donors and host authorities a voice in planning
through a project advisory committee, as the Syria Field
Director (a longtime proponent of reforming the way UNRWA
does business) has done. The Gaza Field Director's
resistance to adopting the new approaches to emergency
planning being pioneered by the West Bank Field reinforces
our belief that donors will have to work hard to exercise
oversight over any camp development program UNRWA conducts
in Gaza. END COMMENT.


9. (U) Embassy Tel Aviv cleared this message.
HALE