How much has Canada given to UNRWA? A look at the funding in recent years

More than a dozen countries, including Canada, have paused their funding to UNRWA in the wake of allegations that some of its staff members were involved in the Oct. 7 attacks.

More than a dozen countries, including Canada, have pressed pause on their funding to the United Nations Palestinian refugee agency (UNRWA) in the wake of allegations that some of its staff members were involved in the attacks on Israel last October.

More than the 60 per cent of UNRWA’s budget in 2022 was filled by the United States, Canada, United Kingdom, Australia, Germany, Japan, Italy, Switzerland and other countries that have suspended their aid to the agency.

A U.S. spokesperson said on Monday that the U.S. government will wait for the results of the UN’s investigation into the allegations, which American officials have described as “extremely troubling,” before it resumes delivering aid. The U.S. is the agency’s largest donor.

UNRWA has been providing food, water and shelter to people in Gaza during the Israel-Hamas conflict.

With the majority of its budget now in doubt, the agency says it will be forced to halt operations within weeks if funding isn’t restored.

“If the funding is not resumed, UNRWA will not be able to continue its services and operations across the region, including in Gaza, beyond the end of February,” a spokesperson for the agency said on Monday.

The U.N. Relief and Works Agency for Palestinian Refugees in the Near East was established to provide aid to the estimated 700,000 Palestinians “who lost both home and means of livelihood as a result of the 1948 War” about Israel’s creation.

UNRWA operates schools, health clinics, infrastructure projects and aid programs in refugee camps that now resemble dense urban neighborhoods in Gaza, the Israeli-occupied West Bank, Lebanon, Syria and Jordan. It has 13,000 employees in Gaza alone, the vast majority of them Palestinians.