A donor-led organizational performance assessment report lauds UNRWA’s unparalleled services for Palestine Refugees

AMMAN,

A review of UNRWA by a group of UN Member States, all of them donor countries, has commended the Agency for managing to keep operating under highly challenging circumstances, including the war in Gaza. The report, analyzing UNRWA’s performance and effectiveness, confirms its unparalleled ability to deliver education, health, and social services to Palestine Refugees.

“UNRWA has demonstrated a commendable ability to adapt and continue its operations under highly challenging conditions, including active conflict zones,” said the report of  MOPAN – the Multilateral Organization Performance Assessment Network.

“The Agency’s ability to deliver education, health, and social services at scale to one of the world’s most vulnerable populations is unparalleled," it added.

MOPAN previously reviewed UNRWA in 2011 and 2018. Germany and Qatar co-led this latest assessment, which covered the period between July 2018 and April 2023 but also underscored the Agency's critical humanitarian role in Gaza. According to the report, the main strengths of the Agency are:

• UNRWA’s unique and valuable contribution to regional and local stability.
• A proven ability to consistently deliver quality services to a growing number of people under increasingly difficult conditions.
• Proven adaptive capacity to deliver services in worsening conditions, including during the COVID-19 pandemic and the war in Gaza.
• Committed staff with robust contextual understanding.

MOPAN acknowledged that there had been improvements since the 2018 assessment, especially in evaluation and oversight, planning and reporting, and external outreach, including to donors and other parts of the UN system. It gave the Agency an overall “satisfactory” rating in the vast majority of assessed areas.

MOPAN also identified areas where UNRWA could improve its performance. It recommended the development of a more decentralized organizational structure, called for the Agency’s physical infrastructure and assets to be improved or replaced, and said the digitization of its work processes and systems should be bolstered.

In addition, it recommended UNRWA to do more on gender equality and environmental sustainability, risk management, prevention of sexual exploitation and abuse, ethics, evaluation, and human resources. Additionally, the MOPAN report recommended that the Agency further strengthens its external and internal communications - underscoring the significant improvement made in this area since the last assessment - as well as its performance monitoring, needs assessments and learning.

“We welcome MOPAN’s acknowledgement of UNRWA’s unparalleled service delivery and unique contribution to regional and local stability,” said UNRWA Deputy Commissioner-General Natalie Boucly. “We are committed to addressing the areas for improvement and call on Member States to step up their political and financial support to the Agency to enable us to do so. Such support is critical to continue providing public-like services to Palestine Refugees across all fields, and to deliver lifesaving humanitarian assistance in Gaza.”

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Notes to Editors

• UNRWA is currently analyzing the findings of the MOPAN assessment. The Agency is cross-referencing the MOPAN recommendations with those of the Independent Review of UNRWA - the Colonna report, published in April - to identify synergies in the implementation of both.
• The members of MOPAN are Australia, Belgium, Canada, Denmark, Finland, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Japan, Korea, Luxembourg, The Netherlands, New Zealand (observer), Norway, Qatar, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States, and Türkiye (observer).