The extraordinarily difficult financial situation of the United Nations Relief Works Agency (UNRWA) in 2015 is the result of chronic underfunding. Increasing competition for scarce funding, economic downturn in major financing economies and volatility of exchange rates has resulted in a critically adverse funding environment.
Since UNRWA cannot directly influence those factors, the deterioration of the financial balance reduced its capacity to timely respond to the required needs. Other factors, like the natural demographic increase of beneficiary numbers, also constitute a burden for UNRWA‟s capacity to effectively deliver services. This situation has led to UNRWA applying several austerity measures which in turn have a negative impact on its ability to raise funds.
