The European Union, Austria, and Ireland provided €23.5 million to help the Palestinian Ministry of Social Development pay social allowances for 114,000 vulnerable Palestinian family. This is the second payment of social allowances in 2020. It comes ahead of Eid Al Adha amid unprecedented economic and social challenges faced by the Palestinian people due to the implications of the Covid-19 crisis and recent political developments.

The EU supports the Palestinian Authority (PA) Ministry of Social Development, which is responsible for the provision of basic social protection to the most vulnerable families in the West Bank and Gaza through its Cash Transfer Programme. Social allowances are paid on a quarterly basis to vulnerable Palestinian families. In this second payment of 2020, an additional 9,000 families from Gaza were added to the list bringing the total number of beneficiaries to 114,000 vulnerable Palestinian families.

At the request of the Ministry of Finance, the European Union has doubled its financial contribution for this payment and provided €21.5 million. Austria and Ireland have also provided €1 million each.

Since 2008, most of the European Union’s assistance to the Palestinian Authority (PA) is channelled through the PEGASE Direct Financial Support, supporting the PA reform process and various national development plans, currently the National Policy Agenda (NPA) 2017-2022. PEGASE supports the PA’s recurrent expenditures, mainly the salaries and pensions of civil servants, the social allowances paid through the cash transfer programme and part of the costs of referrals to the East Jerusalem Hospitals.

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Press Release

The Office of the European Union Representative (West Bank and Gaza Strip, UNRWA)