Highlights
The Microfinance Department in Gaza organized its first trade fair to display the products and services from 41 different small and microenterprises run by Palestinians benefitting from UNRWA microfinance loans. Services and business types ranged from food manufacturing, sewing, embroidery and accessories, banners and advertisement printing shops to fiberglass and aluminum workshops. The event took place in the UNRWA Rehabilitation Centre for the Visually Impaired (RCVI) in Gaza City and lasted for three days from 18 to 20 July 2016. The trade fair was a unique opportunity for the participants to display their products and services to the broader community in Gaza, including customers, potential partners and traders. Furthermore they had the chance to interact with other financial and lending institutions and to discuss ideas of developing or expanding their businesses. The trade fair was held under the patronage of the Deputy Commissioner-General of UNRWA, Sandra Mitchell, on the occasion of the 25th anniversary of the establishment of the Microfinance Department in UNRWA. Senior UNRWA staff, donor representatives, as well as representatives of international organizations operating in Gaza and representatives of the industry unions in Palestine were present at the opening of the fair.
The UNRWA Health Programme (HP) organized a workshop on diabetic foot examination for 96 medical officers, practical nurses and staff nurses in the Rimal Health Centre in Gaza city. The training took place from 25 to 28 July and covered topics related to the pathogenesis of a diabetic foot, including practical diabetic foot exam. The UNRWA HP also regularly conducts awareness sessions on diabetes for the community, aiming at providing information and knowledge related to healthy lifestyles such as the importance of physical activity, unhealthy diets, or symptoms of diabetes and how to live and take care of persons with non-communicable diseases (NCDs). It is recognized that the main cause of death and illness among Palestine refugees are NCDs such as diabetes, cardiovascular diseases and cancer. In Gaza, high diabetes rates are a direct result of the disruption to economic and social activity which allows malnutrition and infectious diseases to co-exist with non-communicable health conditions such as obesity and diabetes. Forced urbanization, over-crowding and the related psycho-social stress can aggravate these diseases. The ever-increasing cost of diabetes care is a big challenge given the Agency’s scarce resources. Data for 2015 revealed that out of the total expenditure on medicines by UNRWA, 51 per cent was spent on medicines for the treatment of NCDs.
In recent years, the longstanding shortage of adequate sanitation infrastructure in the Gaza Strip has resulted in the discharge of around 90 million litres of untreated or partially treated sewage into the sea every day, posing serious health and environmental hazards, as the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) reports. Development of water and sanitation infrastructure has been severely impacted by the import restrictions imposed by Israel in its blockade of the Gaza Strip, now in its tenth year. OCHA reports that at present, several key WASH (water, sanitation and hygiene) items such as pumps, drilling equipment and disinfectant chemicals are on the Israeli “dual use” list, meaning that entry of such items to Gaza is severely restricted. This situation is exacerbated whenever there is a reduction in the already limited electricity supply, which further impacts the quality of the sewage being released into the sea. Reductions in the electricity supply occurred extensively during April and May 2016 when the Gaza Power Plant (GPP) was shut down or operating minimally. This was due to a shortage of fuel needed to run the plant, triggering up to 20 hours of blackout a day, the report states further. The contamination of seawater poses a serious health risk to those using beaches as recreational sites, particularly during the summer, and to those consuming seafood obtained from the areas most affected. A recent joint assessment by the Environment Quality Authority, the Civil Defense and the Ministry of Health in Gaza indicated that 52 per cent of the Gaza seashore is severely polluted and unsuitable for swimming, including nearly 90 per cent of the shore in Gaza City. The precarious nature of existing facilities and power shortages also generates a constant threat of sewage flooding in areas adjacent to reservoirs and pumping stations. UNRWA has highlighted the human impact of the devastating water and sanitation situation in Gaza through its ongoing “real stories, real lives” campaign against the blockade.
On 10 July 2016, UNRWA commenced the third round of food distribution this year, lasting until the end of September 2016. As of 20 July, over 93,000 beneficiaries received their new and improved food baskets including wheat flour, rice, dried milk powder, chick peas, lentils, sugar and canned sardines for Social Safety Net beneficiaries. In total, over 930,000 refugees will receive the Agency’s food assistance. The new food baskets were for the first time distributed in the second distribution round this year (April – June 2016); a video explaining the new UNRWA food baskets in detail to Palestine refugees is currently broadcast on UNRWA TV and its corresponding YouTube channel and can be watched here. UNRWA Gaza Communications also produced a new cooking show based on the new UNRWA food baskets in addition to a promotional episode featuring UNRWA students and the Director of UNRWA Operations in Gaza, Mr. Bo Schack (all episodes are in Arabic). All recipes are based on the ingredients of the new food baskets, with a view to provide UNRWA beneficiaries with creative and low-cost ideas on how to use the food basket items. UNRWA provides a food basket to all eligible refugee families on a quarterly basis. The Agency adheres to a poverty targeting mechanism to identify eligibility for food assistance and Palestine refugees in Gaza receive food assistance following their poverty assessment. An animation video explaining the UNRWA poverty assessment system to its beneficiaries can be viewed here.
The UN Humanitarian Coordinator in the occupied Palestinian territory, Mr. Robert Piper, has published an opinion piece on the humanitarian impact of a divided Palestinian government. In the article, Mr. Piper states that besides 49 years of occupation and nine years of blockade on Gaza, the long-standing divisions between Fatah and Hamas are making things worse for Palestinians, particularly for those in Gaza. Due to the ongoing divisions, many of the basic rights and needs of the people of Gaza such as health, education, water or municipal services and social welfare– already devastated by occupation policies – are suffering. The ongoing crisis has left tens of thousands of government workers in Gaza without full pay since May 2014. Taking the health sector as example, Mr. Piper states that over 40 per cent of Ministry of Health employees, including doctors and nurses, have not been paid their full salaries regularly since May 2014; coordination between Ramallah and Gaza on the supply of essential drugs and medical supplies has become precarious with shortages of pharmaceuticals being a main reason for referrals outside. The situation has a profound effect on ordinary Palestinians trying to get health care inside Gaza. It means waiting as long as 24 months for elective surgery and long delays for diagnostic procedures, like tissue sample diagnostics for cancer patients. It means long waiting-lists for interventions to treat chronic if non-life threatening diseases which can also mean a deterioration in general health. In some cases, the article states, patients have to live with chronic ailments, unnecessarily, while operating theatres are available but lying idle, unstaffed and underequipped. The overarching solution to the humanitarian situation in Gaza is a political one, beyond the realm of humanitarians, states Piper: “Nine years [of blockade] is too long. Band-Aid solutions have run their course. Palestine needs to reunify under a democratic Government. The costs of failing to do so are spiraling, and they are hitting the most vulnerable citizens hardest. The UN is standing-by to help in any way we can but the starting-point lies elsewhere.”
The UNRWA shelter update
Highlights:
During the reporting week UNRWA completed the payments to 19 families for the reconstruction of their totally destroyed homes. Almost 1,000 more families are currently receiving payments to reconstruct their totally destroyed houses.
Overview of assistance disbursed
As of 20 July 2016:
Since the start of the 2014 emergency shelter response, the Agency has distributed over US$ 196.9 million (excluding Programme Support Costs) to Palestine refugee families whose homes were damaged or destroyed during the 2014 summer conflict.
The UNRWA shelter assessment confirmed 142,071 Palestine refugee houses as impacted during the 2014 conflict; 9,117 of them are considered totally demolished. 5,417 shelters have suffered severe, 3,700 major and 123,837 minor damages
Completed and ongoing payments
UNRWA has completed the payments to over 67,000 refugee families for minor repair works, to 3,254 families to repair their severely damaged shelters, to 13 families for major repair works, and to 179 families for reconstruction.
Payment transfers for over 11,460 refugee families to continue repair works of their shelters and for almost 1,000 families to continue the reconstruction of their shelters are ongoing.
UNRWA continues to pay transitional shelter cash assistance (TSCA) for eligible refugee families still displaced by the 2014 conflict. Approximately 8,500 eligible families have received the first tranche of rental subsidy payments for 2016, and approximately 6,800 families received the second quarter payment. In 2015, UNRWA paid TSCA to approximately 9,000 eligible refugee families and from September to December 2015 13,250 families received rental subsidy payments.
Funding gaps and needs – reconstruction
As of 20 July 2016:
Payments to 6,303 refugee families to start repairing their totally destroyed homes are outstanding.
The total costs of reconstructing their homes amounts to approximately US$ 283.6 million
Funding gaps and needs – rental subsidy payments
As of 20 July 2016:
Approximately 1,700 eligible refugee families still displaced by the 2014 conflict have not received transitional shelter cash assistance (TSCA) for the second quarter in 2016. The US$ 23.3 million in TSCA needed to assist the 2014 conflict emergency caseload in 2016 has been included in the oPt Emergency Appeal 2016.
Funding gaps and needs – repair works
For repairs of damages of all categories (minor, major and severe), the principal barrier to completing the outstanding repairs is funding. If current conditions remain, including adequate amounts of building material entering Gaza, UNRWA estimates that repairs could be completed within six months from receipt of sufficient funding.
As of 20 July 2016:
Over 60,150 families have not received any payments to undertake repair works for their minor damaged homes (total estimate repair costs: US$ 67.9 million).
3,192 families have not received any payments to repair or start repairing their major damaged homes (total estimate repair costs: US$ 28.7 million),
Payments to 1,109 families to repair or start repairing their severely damaged homes are outstanding (total estimate costs: US$ 9.9 million). Out of these, UNRWA has processed the documents of approximately 56,900 families with damaged shelters and could disburse payments (first and second tranche payments) to these families immediately upon receipt of funding