The UN agency for Palestinian refugees is still facing a budget deficit despite raising $81 million in funding last month, the UNRWA commissioner general said during a news conference on Thursday.
Pierre Krahenbuhl, during a news conference held in Gaza City, said UNRWA received $81 million of its $101 million deficit, but that the organization still needs more donor support.
Krahenbuhl added that European Union member-countries have pledged to donate more funding to UNRWA, without adding further details.
Krahenbuhl stressed that 685 UNRWA-affiliated schools in Palestinian refugee camps, serving more than half-a-million children, were threatened with closure for the 2015 academic year due to the organization's major budget deficit.
In July, UNRWA announced it was considering the possibility of canceling or delaying the 2015 school year until the deficit was met.
A return to the normally scheduled school year was not announced until less than a week before children were set to start the 2015 academic year, when the organization said it had reached $81 million in funding toward the deficit.
After announcing that schools would be opening as scheduled, Krahenbuhl, in an interview with IRIN news, called the deficit the “most serious financial crisis ever,” adding that the risk to the organization's "immediate core activities" was "unprecedented."
"We can't have another year like this," Krahenbul told IRIN.
While schools were set to open on time, UNRWA staff went on strike to protest overcrowding and unpaid vacations on the first day of the school year.
The strike was supported by parents, who joined the protest and kept their children home from school for the rest of the week.
During Thursday's press conference, Krahenbuhl added that Saudi Arabia is UNRWA's third biggest donor country.
