Palestinian NGOs' representatives on Tuesday stressed the need to strengthen coordination and partnership with the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA) regarding the various programs and services it provides to the Palestinian people to strengthen their steadfastness.
In a meeting with the director of UNRWA operations in Gaza, Bo Schack, organized by the Palestinian NGO's Network (PNGO) with the participation of Palestinian NGOs' representatives, the later stressed the need for UNRWA intensified efforts to improve the living conditions of the Palestinian refugees, and speed up Gaza reconstruction and create job opportunities for the Palestinian youth.
Amjad Shawa, the director of Palestinian NGO's Network (PNGO) in his welcoming speech, noted that the meeting held at time when the Palestinian people experience difficult conditions as a result of the blockade, repercussions of the Israeli occupation's summer offensive of 2014, and the slow pace of the reconstruction process not to mention the doubled rates of unemployment, poverty and food insecurity which reached unprecedented rates, and their dangerous implications on the lives of the Palestinian people.
Shawa stressed the need to promote coordination and joint action and intensify the efforts to face the repercussions of the situation and pressure for lifting the Israeli occupation's blockade of Gaza.
Bo Schack, for his part, thanked the Palestinian NGO's Network for organizing such a meeting, and emphasized that the set of problems facing the Gaza Strip such as the blockade, unemployment, power outages, and movement restrictions, should not be only faced with the humanitarian assistance but with a political solution.
Bo Schack, highlighted UNRWA's evident tasks in the Gaza Strip such as providing education, primary healthcare services, and the psychological support as well as distributing food aid to hundreds of thousands of refugees. He stated that UNRWA seeks to reduce the number of schools that operate on double shift basis.
The UNRWA official stated that at least 30 UNRWA health centers provide health care for the Palestinians in the Gaza Strip; where currently 950 thousand Palestinian refugee; instead of 850 thousand in the previous years, receive social services and food assistance.
Bo Schack mentioned the role of UNRWA in the reconstruction of the Gaza Strip in the period after the Israeli summer offensive of 2014 which emerged in rehabilitating the affected schools and healthcare centers and rebuilding each of the partially and completely destroyed houses.
He stated that the crisis suffered by UNRWA last year was a financial not a political crisis and it was solved.
Bo Schack made it clear that the relationship between UNRWA and the Palestinian NGOs must be based on strategic partnership.