Question Period Note: United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA)

The Government has received both support and criticism regarding the provision of funding to UNRWA.

• Canada is committed to helping vulnerable Palestinians, including refugees whom UNRWA is mandated to serve. Sufficient and predictable resources is important for meeting the needs of refugees and to support regional stability.

• Canada's support to UNRWA contributes to ensuring that the Agency operates in an effective, transparent, and accountable manner.
• Canadian officials are monitoring UNRWA's activities, this engagement allows us to insist on accountability if UNRWA faces allegations of neutrality violations.

• Canada's engagement allows for insisting on proactive disclosure, timely follow-up, and implementation of corrective or disciplinary actions (as deemed appropriate and in line with due process) if alleged or confirmed neutrality violations arise.
• Canada expects UNRWA to uphold UN values and humanitarian principles, including neutrality, including zero-tolerance policy for incitement to violence or discrimination, in all activities.

Canada has committed $90M to UNRWA from 2020 through 2022.

As part of Canada's global actions to address the COVID-19 crisis, UNRWA received $1.5 million in 2020 to support the agency's preparedness and response to COVID-19 in the region.

An additional $4 million was provided in response to the crisis in Gaza in June 2021.

Canada's support helps more than half a million Palestinian children who rely on UNRWA for education services.

UNRWA also delivers critical food or cash assistance to approximately 2 million beneficiaries, with a focus on the very poorest.

Canadian funding reinforces UNRWA's ongoing efforts on neutrality, including work by UNRWA staff to identify, monitor, and follow up on violations of this principle.

Canada exercises enhanced due diligence for all international assistance funding for Palestinians, including funding for UNRWA.

Since 1948, UNRWA has been the only UN organization mandated to provide basic services to over five million Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. UNRWA is almost entirely funded through voluntary contributions by international donors and has faced a significant funding shortfall partly as a result of growing needs, falling contributions, and a volatile environment. UNRWA's Program Budget (education, health and social services) and its Emergency Appeals for humanitarian assistance are currently significantly underfunded to cover services up to the end of 2021. Without significant additional resources, services may need to be cut, leading to negative humanitarian consequences.

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