Military

DATE=7/15/03

TYPE=CORRESPONDENT REPORT

TITLE=U-N / PALESTINIAN ECONOMY (L-O)

NUMBER=2-305436

BYLINE=LISA SCHLEIN

DATELINE=GENEVA

CONTENT=

VOICED AT:

INTRO: Last month, the United Nations agency whose mandate is to help Palestinian refugees, appealed for millions of dollars in aid. But the response has been so poor that the agency, the U-N Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees, UNRWA, is now warning it will have to cut humanitarian assistance to hundreds of thousands of Palestinian refugees in the West Bank and Gaza. Lisa Schlein has more on the story from Geneva.

TEXT: The head of UNRWA, Peter Hansen, spoke to correspondents before the opening of a two-day seminar in Geneva called to examine the economic plight of the Palestinian people.

Mr. Hansen says in June his agency appealed for more than 100 million dollars in emergency aid that was to last until the end of the year. As of now, he says, the agency has received nothing.

Although Mr. Hansen says the agency has received pledges indicating donors eventually will give between 35 and 40 million dollars, he says that is far less than what is needed. As a consequence, he says many important programs for the Palestinians will be reduced or come to an end.

He says half of the one-point-three million Palestinians UNRWA helps will no longer receive food. He says nearly two thousand shelters that were completely destroyed in the West Bank and Gaza will not be rebuilt. He also says emergency employment programs will have to be drastically reduced.

/// HANSEN ACT ///

We will maybe have to cut out some five thousand 500 jobs. That translates into 600 thousand job days that a person is employed and there will be some 33 to 35 thousand people affected, mainly and usually head of family losing the job.

/// END ACT ///

In addition, Mr. Hansen says the U-N will have to cut down drastically on the number of people it gives emergency assistance to from 13 thousand to nine hundred.

The United Nations says the Palestinian economy is in a devastating state. Conservative estimates put unemployment at 60 percent. It says about 70 percent of the population lives on less than two dollars a day.

The head of UNRWA says now, when the Middle East peace process appears to be getting off the ground, is a particularly bad time to be making drastic cuts.

/// 2ND HANSEN ACT ///

If the international community wants to send a message: "Trust us. We are working on your behalf. We will eventually have peace." That is not very likely that such trust will in fact be created.

/// END ACT ///

Mr. Hansen says the Palestinian people are becoming frustrated and angry and may soon lose hope that the outside world will ever be willing to give them the kind of aid they need. (SIGNED)

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