UN report: Gaza won't be 'liveable' by 2020 if urgent action not taken
Gaza will no longer be "liveable" by 2020
unless urgent action is taken to improve water supply, power, health, and
schooling, the United Nations' most comprehensive report on the Palestinian enclave
said on Monday.
"Action needs to be taken now if Gaza is to be a
liveable place in 2020 and it is already difficult now," UN humanitarian
coordinator Maxwell Gaylard told journalists when the report was released on
Monday.
Five years into an Israeli blockade supported by Egypt,
and living under one-party rule, Gaza's population of 1.6 million is set to
rise by 500,000 over the next eight years, say the authors of the UN's most
wide-ranging report on the territory.
Gaza has one the youngest populations in the world, with
51 percent of people under the age of 18.
"Action needs to be taken right now on fundamental
aspects of life: water sanitation, electricity, education, health and other
aspects," Gaylard said.
Since 2007, Gaza has been under the control of the
Islamist Hamas organization, an armed political movement which rejects
permanent peace with Israel. They fought a three-week war in January 2009, and
Israel is resisting international pressure to lift its blockade, which it says
prevents arms reaching Hamas.
Gaza has no airport and no sea port. The border is tense,
with frequent clashes over rocket or mortar fire from Gaza and air strikes by
Israel. Gaza rockets hit Israeli land on Sunday, damaging a factory in the town
of Sderot, east of the enclave.
Israel partly eased restrictions in mid-2010, and Gaza's
crippled economy began to revive from rock bottom. Real GDP is estimated to
have risen by 28 percent in the first half of 2011 as unemployment fell to 28
percent in 2011 from 37 percent.
But the report, involving expertise from more UN agencies
and making projections further into the future than before, said growth over
the next eight years would be slow, since Gaza's current isolation renders its
economy essentially non-viable.
The people in the narrow coastal strip live mainly on UN
aid, foreign funding and a tunnel economy which brings in food, construction
materials, electronics and cars from Egypt.
But the smuggling trade is no solution. Robert Turner,
director of operations of the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA),
said Gaza by 2020 will need 440 more schools, 800 more hospital beds and over a
1,000 additional doctors.
Comments
Post a Comment