UN INVESTIGATION
Lazzarini has held intensive consultations with donors, together with a visit to Gulf nations and Brussels, in latest days in a bid to plug UNRWA’s funding shortfall of some US$440 million.
Some donors, such because the United States and Britain, have indicated they won’t resume assist till the UN’s internal investigation into the allegations ends. A preliminary report is because of be printed within the subsequent a number of weeks.
“We are going to hold carefully in contact with the progress of that investigation, and that may inform our determination,” Leo Docherty, a British junior international workplace minister, informed Britain’s parliament on Tuesday.
A French diplomatic supply mentioned Paris was making an attempt to get European Union companions to reverse their choices to droop funding, saying there was no different to UNRWA.
“We have now full confidence on this United Nations company which for us performs a vital position for the Palestinian populations, however we can even be extraordinarily severe within the examination which might be carried out by UNRWA itself of the state of affairs of the brokers who had been implicated,” French international ministry deputy spokesperson Christophe Lemoine mentioned.
UNRWA spokesperson Juliette Touma mentioned that to this point donors had not reversed their determination to pause funding, which could power tough choices in late February.
“The loss is because it was – half of our operational funds. So the query is the place will we be in a few weeks and what choices are we pressured to make – what’s going to we now have to shut, what’s going to we now have to close down?” she mentioned.
