ammonnews.net

Ammon News - Director General of the Department of Palestinian Affairs (DPA), Rafeeq Kharfan, affirmed Jordan's continued support for the United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees (UNRWA) to carry out its tasks according to UN mandate, to protect and provide basic and essential services to Palestinian refugees.

Speaking at the conclusion of the UNRWA Subcommittee meetings on Tuesday, he said Jordan was the first country in the world to provide the Covid-19 vaccine free of charge to all residents on its soil, including refugees.

For his part, Director of the International Organizations Department at the Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Expatriate Affairs, Mohammad Tarawneh, underlined the importance of the upcoming international conference sponsored by the Kingdom and Sweden, devoted to drumming up the funding necessary to solve UNRWA's "serious and recurring" financial crisis over years, aimed to ensure "sustainable and predictable" financing.

The expected date to hold the coming international conference to support UNRWA is scheduled next mid-June, Tarwaneh said.

In this context, he praised the member states and bodies of the UNRWA Subcommittee, which have expressed their willingness to participate in and make this conference a success.

Held over a two-day period, the meetings of UNRWA Sub-committee discussed a number of issues related to the challenges facing the agency and ways to overcome them, foremost of which is its "serious and unprecedented" financial crisis, which peaked over the past three months, with estimates that the agency will face a huge challenge in cash flow by April.

The DPA delegation, participating in the subcommittee meetings, valued UNRWA's ongoing projects to modernize its operations, including its project to develop and strengthen its programs for the protection of vulnerable groups of Palestinian refugees such as children, the elderly and people with special needs, in line with international standards, stressing the need to take into account the cultural and social contexts of the refugee community and the region, according to DPA press statement.

The delegation also appreciated UNRWA's project to digitize and update its systems for registering Palestinian refugees, urging the agency to store written documents, and maintain its existing standards related to registering and providing its services to its beneficiaries, the statement noted.