UNRWA avtal 2017-2022

Summar of results achieved Sida supported and co-funded the "Evaluation of the UNRWA Emergency Appeals (EA) for oPT and the regional Syria Crisis 2016-2021". The Evaluation concludes that the services delivered by UNRWA through the Emergency Appeals (EA) noticeably respond to the emergency needs of affected Palestine refugees and are highly considered by recipients. Services provided aligned strongly with needs, however the Services were often not sufficient in quantity to fully cover all needs. UNRWA achieves intended results to an overall satisfactory level. The objectives are in line with its strategic direction and the overall performance in regards to their emergency appeals are satisfactory in terms of relevance, timeliness and effectiveness. However, as the Evaluation points out, the degree of results achievement varies across strategic priorities, objectives and as well as across field offices. In particular, cash assistance as well as emergency health and MHPSS had considerably lower target reach. It is also noted that the intensification of the complex conflict dynamics, underlying vulnerabilities as well as external factors such as Covid-19 and increasing inflation rates severely affects UNRWA's work. Last but not least, the chronic funding shortfall puts serious constraints on UNRWA to deliver sufficiently in accordance with prevailing humanitarian needs. The emergency appeals also have a strong dependency to the Programme Appeals and this further exacerbates the issues and instability related to funding shortages. UNRWA operates large scale programmes and UNRWA has a long experience working with Palestine refugees in the region, and has been delivering emergency response to since 2000 in West Bank and Gaza and since 2011 in Syria and its neighboring countries. Further, the emergency operations at field level are well-established and well-experienced with management of its emergency operations and therefore can counteract and manage, would they arise, risks related to inadequate control. Overall, UNRWA has prioritized funding lifesaving Strategic Priority 1 activities as well as critical education, health and protection services under Strategic Priority 2. Operational efficiency and timeliness have been influenced by a particularly problematic economic situation characterized by fluid evolving political and security dynamics, market and currency fluctuations, internal economic crises (for example in Gaza and Lebanon), increasing food and supply chain prices, and the specificitets relating to certain donor requirements. Noteworthy, the Evaluation further highlights a reasonably widespread integration of gender considerations. This includes forms of emergency assistance with an explicit focus on females, including, for example, emergency food and cash assistance for female-headed households in Gaza and Syria, or the provision of assistance to females identified as being at risk of gender-based violence in Syria, Lebanon and Jordan. Last but not least, Emergency Appeals results frameworks contain several gender-specific indicators relating to these interventions and also include sex-dis-aggregated data for numerous other indicators. Strategic Priority 1 (SP1): Emergency food and cash assistance and humanitarian assistance for basic needs. Results from the evaluation surveys, apart from Syria, and to a lesser extent Lebanon for cash assistance, food and cash assistance typically the largest and most critical components of EAs were regarded as crucial or important for recipients. This result was particularly the case for cash assistance in Jordan, Gaza and the West Bank and food assistance in Gaza. However, notably, it was rarely sufficient in quantity or frequency to enable them to meet their basic needs. In 2019 and 2020, UNRWA met all its results targets concerning to food assistance in the West Bank including East Jerusalem. In Gaza, there has been a continuous and sustained improvement in the proportion of annual results targets met relating to food assistance. However, new registrations have been halted since 2020 and there are 60,000 beneficiaries in need who have not been eligible. In Syria, on the other hand, targets were surpassed in 2019 and 2020, when targeting was in place, and in 2021 when blanket coverage was introduced. Cash assistance was also a major component of Emergency Appeal-supported interventions in most areas of operation. This involved both regular cash assistance as well as one-off emergency cash grants to vulnerable households or individuals during COVID-19. A considerable proportion of annual results targets went unmet in the area of cash assistance. The evaluation concludes that a combination of funding limitations and targeting prioritization, the amounts provided are low (e.g., in Syria they are below what is recommended by the Cash Working Group), and their frequency can vary. As an example, through the 2022 Emergency Appeal for oPT, UNRWA supported the emergency food and nutritional needs of 1,143,688 vulnerable Palestine refugees and distributed cash assistance to 14,575 persons to mitigate acute socioeconomic hardship. UNRWA also provided temporary cash-for-work (CfW) opportunities to 15,453 Palestine refugees, including 5,006 women. Furthermore, UNRWA disbursed emergency cash assistance to 416,567 Palestine refugees in Syria, including 148,022 of the most vulnerable who received a higher amount, while in-kind food 4 annual operational report 2022 assistance was provided to 412,486 refugees. Strategic Priority 2 (SP2): Refugee rights and protection, health, education, livelihoods, WASH/environmental health received consistently a much higher proportion of funding allocation. UNRWAs protection mandate is a cross-cutting issue of relevance to all programmes. Despite this, the most recent protection audits have raised scope for improvement in the degree of programmatic interventions with the Agencys and international protection standards. A protection mainstreaming toolkit was developed in 2020 to support the integration of protection principles into all programming and periodic Protection Alignment Reviews serve as an accountability mechanism in this regard by systematically assessing the degree of alignment with protection standards across all programmatic areas. A summary of Protection Audits carried out in 2017 and 2018 found that the degree of alignment with UNRWA protection standards across all programmatic areas was 51.8%. Some of the protection related activities carried out through Emergency Appeal funding are implicitly supportive of protection mainstreaming across other programmatic areas. For example, in Jordan, Lebanon, and Gaza, Emergency Appeal funding was utilized to support the training of thousands of frontline UNRWA staff members to better enable them to identify and address protection risks. EA funding has also supported more direct efforts to address protection risks when these are identified. In Lebanon and Syria, for instance, thousands of individual Palestine refugees identified as experiencing protection risks were referred for legal aid services with Emergency Appeal support. In the West Bank including East Jerusalem, Emergency Appeal funding was used to support protection monitoring, involving the documentation of protection risks and related advocacy efforts targeting relevant duty bearers. Other areas of intervention covered by the Emergency Appeals included Emergency Health and MHPSS (mental health and psychosocial support), Education in Emergencies, and Protection (which include, for instance, GBV, child protection and legal assistance services). In the areas of Emergency Health and MHPSS, no Field Offices met its targets in any year. Under Education in Emergencies, a higher proportion of annual results targets were met compared to other strategic areas, with interventions covering the provision of educational materials to students, and individual and group PSS (psychosocial support) counselling services to students and teachers. In terms of Protection, supported interventions have included UNRWA staff training on protection, protection mainstreaming and provision of legal assistance to rights-holders. The proportion of annual targets achieved in this area was high in comparison to many other strategic areas. As an example, primary healthcare and hospitalization services were maintained and 27,273 refugees benefited from mental health and psychosocial support in 2022 in Gaza. Strategic Priority 3 (SP3): Coordination, management, safety, security and maintenance of installations has been progressively de-funded. The Agency takes part in in and aligns its response to regional emergency response planning and coordination mechanisms, such as the Humanitarian Response Plan for Syria, the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan (3RP), the HRP in the oPt and working groups under OCHA:s cluster approach. UNRWA is considered as an extremely important organisation in regional coordination processes, given its considerable experience, infrastructure, and reach in the region. However, according to the Evaluation UNRWAs engagement with other humanitarian agencies in the design of Emergency Appeals could be strengthened. For example, UNRWAs participation in inter-agency coordination mechanisms for emergency response could be improved. UNRWAs Emergency Appeals were considered not consistently shared with clusters for discussion during the design phase, and that during implementation, progress reports, experiences, vulnerability assessments and other information were not always shared or discussed in a proactive manner. This has resulted in an information shortage whereby key partners are not always fully attuned to the details of UNRWAs Emergency Appeals.

The UNRWA Syria Emergency Appeal defines the following strategic priorities for the UNRWA humanitarian response to the Syria crisis: Strategic Priority 1: To preserve resilience through the provision of humanitarian assistance in the form of cash, food and relief items. Strategic Priority 2: To provide a protective framework for Palestine refugees through helping mitigate their vulnerability by maintaining access to basic services including education; health; water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH); and livelihoods and promoting respect for international humanitarian law (IHL) and international human rights law (IHRL). Strategic Priority 3: To strengthen humanitarian capacity, coordination and management to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of emergency programme delivery. The UNRWA oPt Emergency Appel defines the following strategic priorities for UNRWA humanitarian response in oPt: Strategic Priority 1: Food-insecure households and those facing acute shocks have increased economic access to food through food aid/food vouchers, cash assistance and Cash-for- Work. Strategic Priority 2: Crisis-affected refugees enjoy their basic rights to services and assistance, including education; health; water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH); and shelter repair. Strategic Priority 3: Protection of Palestine refugees from the effects of the conflict and violence through access to services and advocacy, awareness-raising and the provision of mental health assistance. Strategic Priority 4: Effective management and coordination of emergency response, to improve the effectiveness, efficiency and neutrality of programme delivery.