São Paulo – The United Nations Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in The Near East (Unrwa) wants more frequent collaboration from Brazil for its projects. The topic was discussed during the visit of Switzerland’s Pierre Krähenbühl, the agency’s commissioner general, with Brazilian authorities last week.
Krähenbühl was in Brasília and São Paulo from the 6th to the 8th. It was his first visit to Brazil since taking office in March 2014. While in the country, he met with the Brazilian foreign minister Mauro Vieira, the special advisor to the Presidency on International Affairs Marco Aurélio Garcia, and the municipal secretary of Human Rights and Citizenship of Municipality of São Paulo, Eduardo Suplicy, among other federal and local government officials.
He also attended the opening of exhibit A Longa Jornada (Portuguese for The Long Journey) in the federal capital. The show had a season in São Paulo and features photos and videos from the agency’s archive, portraying the lives of Palestinian refugees sinc e 1948. He signed a memo of understanding for future cooperation with the São Paulo City Hall and for fundraising actions to the agency’s benefit.
In an exclusive interview to this ANBA reporter, Krähenbühl said he hopes donations from Brazil to the agency will become regular, since the country is offering sizeable contributions to Palestinian refugees. He also intends to have Brazil cater to a specific subject within the Unrwa Advisory Commission, of which it became a member in December 2014.
Here are the highlights of the interview:
ANBA – What were the main topics of your meetings with Brazilian authorities?
Krähenbühl – The primary goal was to show Brazil how much we value the development of our relations over the past four to five years. Brazil has truly begun to commit with us, combining support in education and food relief. Last year, we received a large rice donation that helped us cover all our Middle East needs.
In that same year, Brazil became the first country in Latin America and the BRICs to become a member of the Unrwa Advisory Commission, composed of member states from our region and our major partners and donors. So having Brazil’s voice inside was a very significant thing.
One future development I would really like to see is a more frequent financial contribution to Unrwa. I say so because Unrwa has a very strong commitment to education, for example.
We manage 700 schools for 500,000 boys and girls in the Middle East. Our educational system is the size of a city like San Francisco, in the United States. It’s a big commitment. Therefore, we need frequent support and I believe that since Brazil values human rights and education, we must be apt to embark on a new stage.
Six months ago, Brazil assumed its position in the Unrwa Advisory Commission. What could you tells us regarding the Brazilian participation?
What I can tell from the Brazilian ambassador in Ramallah, Paulo França, who represents the country [in the Advisory Commission] is that we have someone who’s incredibly engaged with us.
I meet him on a regular basis. He is keenly interested in our situation. He and Brazil have sought ways to support [Unrwa] through the conflicts in Gaza last summer, and now with [the Palestinian refugees in] Syria.
What I am looking for right now is a topic Brazil would like to champion actively within the Advisory Commission. Personally, I see human rights and education as a very crucial issue.
President [Dilma] Rousseff is thoroughly engaged in education-related matters, and Unrwa has a wide base in this respect, because we are investing in educating Palestinian refugees for decades now. So we want to find a subject Brazil can work on.
The other country admitted to the Advisory Commission was the United Arab Emirates. How do you see the role of Arab countries in supporting Unrwa’s work?
To begin with, our relationship with the United Arab Emirates is very interesting and dynamic. I have been to Abu Dhabi and Dubai recently for several meetings with government officials.
Last year, the UAE made very generous contributions to our work in Gaza and we are looking into ways of following up with this. I think it’s very interesting to see stronger involvement [from Arab countries].
Saudi Arabia is a very active donor. Today, Saudi Arabia is Unrwa’s third leading donor and the UAE are the seventh. Kuwait is another country making frequent and very positive contributions to our organization. Our priority is to continue to arouse a sense of solidarity from the Arab world.
What are the particularities of the Arab countries when it comes to supporting Palestinian refugees?
They are focusing on reconstruction and construction in general. The UAE and Saudi Arabia were responsible for rebuilding neighborhoods in Gaza, not in this last conflict, but in the previous one. [The houses] were rebuilt for Palestinian refugees by the UAE and Saudi Arabia. They also display great interest in health-related issues. We had a personal investment from an Abu Dhabi minister in healthcare projects in the West Bank, for example. So these are very significant matters, and we will continue working with them.
What is Unrwa’s primary donor these days?
The United States is the leading single donor, followed by the European Union. Next come Saudi Arabia and other important countries, like Sweden, United Kingdom, Japan, Norway and Germany.
For me, it’s of strategic importance for this group to be geographically diverse. The presence of Arab countries is important because of this close connection of solidarity toward Palestinian refugees. However, it is very important for Latin America to have a strong base, because there are significant Arab communities here in Brazil, as well as in Chile and other countries.
At times, countries will worry about where the money is going in case they donate to the agency. Whatever we get goes directly to the Palestinian refugees, because we have no partners for implementation; we do the work directly. Unrwa has 30,000 workers. It is the largest UN agency in number of employees, and 98% are Palestinians. There is a direct connection with the community, there are no middlemen.
How does working on awareness operate in the donating countries so that their population knows the situation of Palestinian refugees better?
It’s a good question because we are challenged by the fact that we focus on people with a problem that is 65 years old, without a political solution. So, to find new ways to talk about this is a great challenge.
At the same time, you have the international focus directed to other issues, such as Syria, Yemen, the earthquake in Nepal, Ebola and others. So, it’s a challenge to highlight this issue. And that’s what the photo exhibition allows us to do from a different angle.
The rest of it has to be about our way of communicating. We try to guarantee that our communication about the Palestinianrefugees is not only about numbers, but about people, because at the heart of this issue there are families just like our families, who dream to live a normal life, a dignified life, a life with security, and they don’t have it. So, I always try to address what it means for each family.
Events like the Israeli attacks to Gaza Strip and the invasion, by the Islamic State, of the refugee camp in Yarmouk, Damascus, had ample coverage by the media. What’s not present in the media’s coverage about the Palestinianrefugees that you consider important for people to know?
We should try to remember what it’s like for people to have their rights denied for so long. Just an example: Israel’s occupation of the Palestinian territories started in 1967. I was born in 1966. So, I grew up, went to school, made friends, played soccer, travelled, went to high school, to the university, came to Latin America for the first time when I was 21 years old, started working, joined the Red Cross and worked in several countries. And I say that not because I want to talk about myself, but during all through this period, someone that lived in Nablus, Hebron, East Jerusalem, Jenin, Jericho or Ramallah lived all this time, in which I had all this experience, under the occupation.
People must understand what it means to not have the freedom to come and go, to not be able to guarantee security for your family or a decent and dignified future. In all this period, in which I grew up and went through all that, if I had been born and grown up in that region, my life would be completely different. And I say that not only because of me, but because of the Palestinian refugees. I say this so people can understand what it means not having a job, not being safe, not being free.
These are things that people must think about deeply to understand that if you don’t have these things, of course you grow resentful, angry and fearful of the future. And that’s not a good recipe for peaceful relations among people.
The other side which I think is very important for people to understand is that, on one hand, the Palestinian refugees are victims of a huge historical injustice, but they are also actors of their own destinies. If you look at the photos in our exhibition, you will find Unrwa’s teachers, doctors, nurses, and they’re all Palestinians. And what’s beautiful in their contribution is that they have been doing it for other Palestinians for generations.
It’s possible to measure how much money it would be necessary to allow good life conditions to all of five million Palestinians refugees?
It’s not possible to measure. But, describing what we spend now with education and social, health and emergency services, we are spending around US$ 1.2 billion to US$ 1.3 billion per year.
For this year, 2015, we will be short around US$ 100 million. So, if we could at least guarantee that we would be getting this US$ 100 million gap to guarantee all these needs and to execute the services, we would be more or less in a decent minimum.
You worked for years at the Red Cross. How has this experience helped you in the work at Unrwa and what you believe are your main challenges in the agency?
When I took office at Unrwa last year, in my first three months, the conflict in Gaza started and what I learned at Red Cross, such as crisis management, work in conflict areas, dealing with everything related to emergencies, that’s what I was able to bring to the table, besides dealing with huge pressure.
What I learned and am still learning at Unrwa are two major issues. One is to work in an agency with a cause so strongly related to a community. And the presence and force of this cause, which also lives in some ways within Unrwa staff, is something that is very unique.
The other thing I also admire a lot at Unrwa is the agency’s educational work. When you work with education, you see this person beyond the fact of being a beneficiary of help, you see people as individuals whose capacities can be developed. With that, you can create future opportunities to these people.
Translated by Gabriel Pomerancblum and Sérgio Kakitani
