At the UNRWA website, there is a document about the mandate of UNRWA. It says this about the difference between the mandates of UNRWA and UNHCR:
The role of UNRWA in relation to durable solutions for Palestine refugees is quite different from that of UNHCR relative to refugees within its mandate. UNHCR has two functions, not only providing international protection but also seeking “permanent solutions for the problem of refugees by assisting governments and, subject to the approval of the governments concerned, private organizations to facilitate the voluntary repatriation of such refugees, or their assimilation within new national communities”. In other words, as part of its mandate, UNHCR “strives to ensure that everyone can exercise the right to seek asylum and find safe refuge in another State, with the option to return home voluntarily, integrate locally, or to resettle in a third country”.
And UNRWA does not.
Although…it once did, as this footnote mentions:
As to UNRWA’s mandate to engage in activities to promote reintegration, see UNGA res. 393 (V) of 2 Dec. 1950 where the General Assembly “Instruct[ed] the Agency to establish a reintegration fund which shall be utilized for projects requested by any government in the Near East and approved by the Agency for the permanent re-establishment of refugees and their removal from relief” (para. 5) after “Consider[ing] that, without prejudice to the provisions of paragraph 11 of General Assembly resolution 194 (III) of 11 December 1948, the reintegration of the refugees into the economic life of the Near East, either by repatriation or resettlement, is essential in preparation for the time when international assistance is no longer available, and for the realization of conditions of peace and stability in the area” (para. 4). This part of the mandate probably ended by 1960 when reference to “reintegration” was dropped from General Assembly resolutions relating to UNRWA, reflecting some acknowledgment that this objective had been defeated: see W. Dale, “UNRWA – A Subsidiary Organ of the UN”, op. cit., 584–5.
UNRWA gave up on its original mandate to help solve the problem, and the UN went along with this change. Now UNRWA exists to continue existing.
Pierre Krähenbühl, Commissioner-General of UNRWA, also pretended that UNRWA is similar to UNHRC is an open letter he wrote to his employees this weekend:
There is sadly nothing unique in the protracted nature of the Palestine refugee crisis. Refugees in places like Afghanistan, Sudan, Somalia, Congo and beyond have also experienced decades of displacement and lack of resolution. Their children and grand-children are similarly recognized as refugees and assisted by UNHCR. Enshrined in the principle of humanity and the international law norm of family unity is the commitment to continue serving communities affected by war until a political solution has been found. It is the failure to end conflicts that prolongs refugee situations and denies refugees the choice to define a dignified future of their own.
A look at the Afghanistan page on the UNHCR site shows that while there are 2.4 million “people of concern” only a small percentage are classified as refugees – only 75,000 who live in camps in Pakistan. Most of the rest are internally displaced persons in Afghanistan itself. As soon as those people establish a new home in another section of the country, they are no longer IDPs and no longer in need of aid.
With all the services that UNHCR provides to these people of concern – roughly half the number of “registered Palestine refugees” under UNRWA -the budget is a mere $125 million, 10% of UNRWA’s $1.2 billion annual budget. And most of UNHCR’s budget there – $75M – is meant to reintegrate the people into new homes so they can be self-sufficient, with only $38M meant to directly give medical or educational aid to them.
The difference is clear. UNRWA needs its money to perpetuate the problem and UNHCR needs it money to eliminate it.
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