UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl to visit Finland

MINISTRY FOR FOREIGN AFFAIRS
http://formin.finland.fi/english

Press release 239/2014
29 October 2014 

UNRWA Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl to visit Finland

Commissioner-General Pierre Krähenbühl of the UN Relief and Works Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East UNRWA will visit Finland on 30–31 October.

Mr. Krähenbühl will meet among others with Prime Minister Alexander Stubb and Minister for Foreign Affairs Erkki Tuomioja, and he will have talks about UNRWA’s activities and the situation in the Middle East at public servant level. In addition, Krähenbühl will meet representatives of Finnish non-governmental organizations and he will be the keynote speaker at a panel on the situation in Gaza organized jointly by the Finnish Institute of International Affairs and the Ministry for Foreign Affairs.

Finland supports UNRWA’s activities as part of its humanitarian assistance. The organization provides basic services to some five million Palestinian refugees in the West Bank, Gaza, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. It plays a key role in safeguarding the rights of Palestinian refugees and helps stabilize the region. UNRWA’s mission is also to provide emergency assistance to the victims of conflicts in the difficult conditions of the region.

Finland is one of UNRWA’s 20 top donors – the largest are the United States, the European Union and Saudi Arabia. This year, Finland’s assistance to the organization is 6.4 million euros, of which 4.5 million euros is so-called non-earmarked general funding for the organization’s basic functions such as children’s education, and the rest is emergency humanitarian aid for the crises in Syria and Gaza.

Additional information: Anna Gebremedhin, Head of the Unit for Humanitarian Assistance, tel. +358 295 351 038 and Tero Shemeikka, Press Attaché to Foreign Minister Tuomioja, tel. +358 295 351 508.