Refugee funding needs to be examined

No wonder the world is struggling with refugees: The United Nations Refugees body has a staff of 9,300 people, takes care of millions of refugees worldwide and has an annual budget of $5bn.

Conversely, UNRWA, the (United Nations Relief and Works Agency (for Palestine refugees) has a staff of 30,000, an annual budget of $2bn (for about a tenth of the global refugee population) and serves only one set of ‘refugees’ — the Palestinians. (I write ‘refugees’ in inverted commas, since the Palestinians are the only people who inherit refugee status from generation to generation, and UNRWA is designed to maintain their refugee status, rather than end it.)

To make the current refugee crisis manageable, it is essential to tackle this anomaly.