US embassy cable - 05AMMAN710

C O N F I D E N T I A L SECTION 01 OF 03 AMMAN 000710 
 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPT FOR PRM AND NEA; PLEASE PASS TO USAID 
 
E.O. 12958: DECL: 01/27/2015 
TAGS: PREF, PREL, EAID, KPAL, IS, JO 
SUBJECT: UNRWA'S GAZA DISENGAGEMENT STRATEGY 
 
REF: DECEMBER 18 REFCOORD WEEKLY AREA REPORT 
 
Classified By: Charge d'Affaires David Hale per 1.4 (b) and (d). 
 
 1. (C) SUMMARY: UNRWA wants to start large-scale 
development of its refugee camps in Gaza post-disengagement 
-- using its experimental Neirab Camp project in Syria, 
which is centered on re-housing refugees outside camps, as 
its model.  Apart from its limited experience carrying out 
integrated camp rehabilitation and community development, 
UNRWA concedes that some key officials at the PA Ministry 
of Planning are reluctant to discuss any development 
strategy that facilitates disengagement.  Nevertheless, 
UNRWA believes it has sufficient support from Abu Mazen to 
continue camp development planning under the guise of its 
draft five-year Medium Term Plan.  The Agency is also 
attempting to stockpile food to maintain its core 
humanitarian mission in the event Gaza's borders are closed 
for extended periods.  UNRWA's current stores will allow it 
to operate through February.  END SUMMARY. 
 
UNRWA BRIEFS DONORS ON ITS DISENGAGEMENT STRATEGY 
--------------------------------------------- ---- 
 
2. (SBU) UNRWA ComGen Peter Hansen and his Chief of 
Operations/Gaza Field Director Lionel Brisson convened 
donors in Jerusalem two weeks after the Oslo AHLC (ref A) 
to brief them on the Agency's proposed strategy to respond 
to Israel's disengagement plan.  Hansen and Brisson (who 
has been extended in his position until 2006, despite 
Hansen's imminent departure) assured donors at that initial 
December briefing that UNRWA would maintain its core 
humanitarian activities during and after disengagement, in 
line with the Roadmap and specific requests the Agency had 
received from the PA.  However, they announced a new 
post-disengagement strategy for the Gaza field, centered on 
starting "comprehensive" development of the eight official 
refugee camps UNRWA operates in the Gaza strip.  Brisson 
said UNRWA would use its ongoing Neirab/Ein al Tal Camp 
project in Syria as its "model," listing several Neirab 
activities UNRWA would like to apply to Gaza: 
 
-- constructing new housing, schools and other facilities 
(and related electrical, sewer and water infrastructure) in 
camps and in communities that would house relocated 
refugees 
 
-- expanding its small business lending programs; 
 
-- doubling vocational training enrollment by building a 
new training center in south Gaza (augmenting the one 
currently in Gaza City) and creating new curricula. 
 
Hansen argued that the donor community would need this 
"macro approach" under the best or worst case scenarios the 
World Bank presented at Oslo, given that 60% of Gaza's 
total population are registered refugees and over half of 
them live in camps that are not covered by the PA's current 
development plan. 
 
UNRWA'S CAMP DEVELOPMENT MODEL: A WORK IN PROGRESS 
--------------------------------------------- ----- 
 
3. (C) At the December briefing, Hansen argued that UNRWA 
is well-placed to pursue development activities in Gaza, as 
it is already constructing infrastructure outside its camps 
under the terms of its long-standing EU-funded integrated 
water and sewer development program, and has an existing 
micro-credit program, making it the largest lender in 
Gaza.  However, the partly-USG funded $26 million Neirab 
project that UNRWA has identified as its model has only 
recently evolved into an effort to integrate house 
rehabilitation with larger community development.  UNRWA 
implemented Neirab two years ago in order to move into new 
homes the 6,000 refugees living in dilapidated second world 
war-era barracks in the camp near Aleppo.  UNRWA quietly 
secured SARG agreement to relocate an initial 1,300 
residents in an unofficial Palestinian "gathering" located 
20-km away at Ein al Tal.  Last March, Switzerland and Canada 
(the project's lead donor) conditioned a significant part of 
their contributions to Phase I construction in Ein al Tal to 
ensure UNRWA added a job-creation and community development 
component, concerned the Agency might inadvertently be 
creating a slum given that 40-60% of the residents being 
moved to Ein al Tal were "special hardship cases" -- 
refugees who receive regular financial and material 
assistance from UNRWA, such as the chronically ill and the 
disabled.  Donors believe UNRWA recognizes the need to 
adapt its approach, but delays in hiring project managers 
from outside UNRWA's ranks have hampered efforts to revise 
the implementation plan.  A detailed review of the 
partially revised plan that Canada, the U.S. and 
Switzerland conducted jointly in December (septel) suggests 
UNRWA will not arrive at an approach that will fully 
satisfy donors before April. 
 
PA REACTION TO PROPOSED CAMP DEVELOPMENT 
---------------------------------------- 
 
4. (C) UNRWA claims it has secured qualified support for 
its efforts to step up camp development planning since the 
Palestinian Presidential election.  In a January 17 telcon, 
Deputy ComGen Karen Abu Zayd told refcoord that Hansen had 
discussed UNRWA's proposed response to disengagement with 
Abu Mazen in a post-election meeting held in Ramallah last 
week.  Abu Mazen reportedly urged UNRWA to maintain its 
emergency humanitarian assistance programs, fearing 
conditions in Gaza would worsen in 2005 because of 
disengagement.  However, Abu Zayd said he also directed 
UNRWA to work with the Gaza-based PLO Refugee Affairs 
Department to refine and integrate its post-disengagement 
development plans with PA planning, although he cautioned 
that the PA had "no details from Israel."  (NOTE: Hansen is 
scheduled to meet PLO Refugee Affairs Department Head Dr. 
Zakaria al Agha in Gaza this week.  END NOTE.)  Abu Zayd 
conceded that the Refugee Department's role in overall 
development planning remained to be seen.  While Al Agha 
reportedly has a close and long-standing relationship with 
Abu Mazen, PLO Refugee Department DG Mohammad Abu Bakr told 
refcoord January 17 that he expected Al Agha to leave the 
Department for a more senior post within the PLO. 
 
5. (C) UNRWA believes Al Agha's departure would put 
integrated development planning on the back burner, given 
that meetings UNRWA has held with Ministry of Planning 
officials in the last two weeks have been unproductive, 
according to Lionnel Brisson and External Affairs Director 
Andrew Whitley, as the Ministry refuses to start any 
substantive discussions with UNRWA in the absence of a 
clear legal framework.  Whitley, for example, said Deputy 
Minister of Planning Dr. Sameh Abed and Aid Coordinator 
Cairo Arafat were both "highly cynical about donors' 
objectives" when Whitley raised disengagement with them 
January 12.  Realizing this state of play, some UNRWA 
donors are working to build capacity at the Refugee Affairs 
Department.  Swiss Development Cooperation Gaza and West 
Bank Office Deputy Head Fritz Froelich told refcoord 
January 18 that he hoped to work with the Canadians to 
provide sufficient funding to the PLO Refugee Affairs 
Office to support it ability to play a role in development 
planning for one full-time staff member and several expert 
consultants "within four weeks." 
 
UNRWA'S FUNDING STRATEGY 
------------------------ 
 
6. (C) Explaining how senior UNRWA officials feel they are 
"treading a fine line politically," Whitley revealed that 
UNRWA's Executive Committee decided January 13 to pursue 
planning under a lower profile, dropping ideas of launching 
a new "disengagement appeal" in favor of securing funding 
for activities already in UNRWA's draft Medium Term Plan 
(MTP), such as infrastructure construction and expanded 
vocational training.  UNRWA is in the process of revising 
the MTP.  It hopes to brief donors in mid-February, and has 
approached the Swiss about launching the plan in Geneva in 
March.  Local SDC staff would prefer to hold their response 
until UNRWA assures donors the MTP reflects the 
recommendations of the high-level conference participants 
who met in Geneva last summer to review UNRWA operations, 
as was agreed at the fall Major Donors Meeting.  The cost 
of UNRWA's new Gaza-related activities may still be unclear 
when the MTP is released.  Deputy ComGen Abu Zayd told 
refcoord January 17 that UNRWA is having difficulty 
determining whether they activities should be absorbed 
under an amended FY 05 budget or fall under its emergency 
program, which already includes a large re-housing 
component.  (NOTE: Refcoord will report on UNRWA's plans to 
allocate the new 20M Euro grant the EU signed in December 
for activities "to support Gaza disengagement,"  and the 
results of the Hansen-Zakaria meeting, septel.  END 
NOTE.) 
 
ADDITIONAL EFFORTS TO STOCKPILE HUMANITARIAN AID 
--------------------------------------------- --- 
 
7. (SBU) In addition to its development planning, UNRWA is 
trying to stockpile food and other emergency supplies in 
the event Gaza's borders are closed for extended periods 
during disengagement.  Gaza Field Office Procurement and 
Logistics Chief Olaf Mulander told refcoord January 16 that 
UNRWA is in the process of completing an emergency food 
distribution round for 130,000 refugee families (about 
780,000 persons), but would be unable to start a second 
round planned for March with current stocks.  Its normal 
distributions to about 80,000 disadvantaged refugees (i.e., 
the "special hardship cases"), would also be disrupted if 
local millers, who supply UNRWA with flour, could not 
obtain wheat shipments.  Mulander said that UNRWA has been 
paying $2.4 million/month in port storage and shipping 
company demurrage fees to keep 844 containers carrying food 
aid in Ashdot port pending screening at Karni terminal. 
Another 350 containers are scheduled to arrive at Ashdot in 
the next two weeks.  He reported that UNRWA had been in 
negotiations with the IDF to start screening containers at 
the military terminal at Sofa (a practice the GOI has 
agreed to do twice before during the current intifada), but 
said his office had received confirmation from Israeli 
authorities last week that this alternative arrangement had 
"fallen through." 
 
COMMENT 
------- 
 
8. (C) UNRWA has been pushing its house 
rehabilitation-based approach to camp development as a 
potential model for its first 2005-2009 Medium Term Plan 
since June. Several donors familiar with UNRWA's first 
effort to implement this approach -- its ongoing Neirab 
project in Syria -- have been encouraging the Agency to 
undertake an employment-based experiment before adopting 
the Neirab model wholesale.  With significant budgetary 
support, Neirab might be an applicable model for Gaza (part 
of Neirab's success has depended on the SARG's willingness 
to build about $5 million in new infrastructure to support 
refugees relocated to Ein al Tal).  However, given UNRWA's 
highly-decentralized approach to planning it is far from 
certain that UNRWA's Gaza Field would agree to modify its 
traditional, unilateral approach to project management and 
give donors and host authorities a voice in planning 
through a project advisory committee, as the Syria Field 
Director (a longtime proponent of reforming the way UNRWA 
does business) has done.  The Gaza Field Director's 
resistance to adopting the new approaches to emergency 
planning being pioneered by the West Bank Field reinforces 
our belief that donors will have to work hard to exercise 
oversight over any camp development program UNRWA conducts 
in Gaza.   END COMMENT. 
 
9. (U) Embassy Tel Aviv cleared this message. 
HALE