UN Official Declares Historic Loss in Human Development in Gaza Strip – Exclusive Interview

Abdullah Al-Dardari, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and Deputy Director and Director of the Regional Office for the Arab States of the United Nations Development Program, said that the decline in human development in the Gaza Strip and in the Palestinian territory is the general result of the conflict, “It is a historic loss that is unparalleled in conflicts and wars since the Second World War.”.

This came in an exclusive interview with UN News after the United Nations Development Program and the Economic and Social Commission for Western Asia (ESCWA) issued a report highlighting the devastating impact of the war in Gaza on the Palestinians, the economy and human development in the country. possession of Palestinian land.

Below is the full text of the conversation with Abdullah Dardari, Deputy Secretary-General of the United Nations and Deputy Director and Director of the Regional Office for the Arab States of the United Nations Development Programme.United Nations News: The report contained a lot of data and figures that show the devastating impact of the war in Gaza on the Palestinian people, their economy, and human development in the Palestinian territory. If we start with data related to the impact of the war on Palestinian families and poverty levels, have we talked more about this point as a result of what was said in the report?

Abdullah Dardari: Unfortunately, the numbers we have come from the studies, research and surveys we have done recently show a very bad social, economic and humanitarian situation.

As I said before, let me also say today that numbers cannot express the level of the humanitarian disaster we are witnessing in Palestine, but the numbers, the studies and the those analyzes to plan effectively and well for a day that we see. we will see and there will be hope soon as we begin to rebuild, equip and restore normal life in Gaza.

The poverty level in Gaza, in fact, has exceeded 80 percent of the population living below the poverty line. The number of people living below the poverty line in the Palestinian territories as a whole, meaning the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem, has increased by more than 1.7 million people. This is not really poor. This number was added to the total number of poor people from October 8 last year.

Also, unemployment has exceeded 50 percent in the entire Palestinian territories, and indeed unemployment is almost universal in Gaza.

We must also point out that hundreds of thousands of Palestinian Authority workers have not received their salaries for several months, and they borrow from banks to guarantee their salaries. Therefore, this threatens the banks themselves, as the level of risk resulting from the non-payment of loans increases dangerously.

UN News: You also spoke in the report about the loss of human capital. What are the most obvious comments in the report in this regard?

Abdullah Dardari: Loss of human capital in the Gaza Strip We can say that the Gaza Strip has lost about 40 years of human development. I can even say that we have returned to the 1980s in terms of human development in the Gaza Strip. So it’s a disaster by all standards.

The State of Palestine as a whole, the West Bank, the Gaza Strip and East Jerusalem, would lose about twenty years if the fighting continued for another two months.

Therefore, it is a historical loss that I do not see comparable in the cases of conflicts and wars since the Second World War.

UN News: Speaking of continuing for another two months, in the report, you put forward four scenarios if the war continues for another month, for two more months, or after six months or seven months for the war to continue. Can you tell us more about this split and these circumstances?

Abdullah Dardari: Of course, we work with complex mathematical models, and we need to develop conditions. Models work on the what-if principle and are built on the idea of ​​asking, what if the war continues for another month? What are these results?

The model accounts for these results. Therefore, our estimates, according to the mathematical models we used, are that if the war continues for a total of eight months, the percentage of loss in gross domestic product in Palestine will reach more on 29 percent of GDP, and this is a very large loss. We hope and we want to show through this statement that every extra day in this war is an extra economic disaster that develops according to an engineering equation and not an arithmetic agreement.

This means that the cost of an additional day in war is greater than the cost of the previous day, and this even contradicts economic theories that talk about the level of subsequent decline after a peak particular of negative results.

This is where we are today, so this helps us plan the reconstruction of Gaza, and in general the Palestinian economy, taking into account these results.

UN News: If you go back to the level of serious decline in the Human Development Index. What does it mean to step back twenty years? How does this reflect on the future after the war?

Abdullah Dardari: The Human Development Index is a composite index of the per capita share of the national product, the average years of education as an indicator of educational level, and life expectancy at birth as an indicator of the efficiency of the health sector.

When we say that the Human Development Index in Palestine goes back decades, this means that all the investments made and used in the field of health, education, drinking water, sanitation, electricity , infrastructure, economic growth, private investment, public investment. , and the investments of donor countries, all these… Things were destroyed. the Gaza.

It is true that we are talking in numbers, but we are talking about children in schools, young people in universities, mothers who have lost all the health services that could support them, and we lost job opportunities for parents and young men and women.

Imagine that Palestine had to go back all those decades to start again, and come back again.

Our estimate is that the loss of investments made in Palestine in the last twenty years exceeds fifty billion dollars. She’s gone, she’s gone. So, when we talk about rebuilding, these are the numbers we have to talk about in depth.

UN News: Referring to the future and youth, the report also discussed the impact on education and school years. Should we talk more about this topic?

Abdullah Dardari: If we count the number of children who could not go to school in the last period, and also those who could not go to school even after the ceasefire​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​​ the lack of teachers, and the lack of abilities to go to school, we are talking about millions of days. This added to our calculation of the decline in the Human Development Index.

What we want to say is that the losses resulting from the war in Gaza do not concern today only.

UN News: What are the most important proposals now to deal with these devastating effects of the conflict?

Abdullah Dardari: First, of course, the call for an immediate cease-fire, because every additional day has additional and very serious costs, as I said.

Second, we have to prepare from here for the next day. Why do we say that? Because in conflict situations, the most dangerous post-conflict phase is the gap between the pause and the beginning of the work to restore normal life.

We must prepare as the United Nations and we are working on that, as well as all international organizations, the Palestinian Authority and others, and the Palestinian community in Gaza, the West Bank and East Jerusalem we are preparation because from the first moment we have to have the necessary materials and money to move.

Let me give you an example of how difficult this is. Today we have 37 million tons of rubble in Gaza. We are working on a plan to return hundreds of thousands of Palestinians to their original homes through decent housing and basic social services, even if they are temporary, but they are sufficient and generous.

Imagine moving 37 million tons of rubble into temporary housing, temporary schools, and temporary hospitals for hundreds of thousands of Palestinians in areas littered with bombs and unexploded mines, and littered with corpses that was found under the rubble, as well as a community that lost educational documents, and lost identification documents and property papers.

So we are almost starting from scratch. The main thing that the Palestinians have is the will, the strength, the education they received in the past, and confidence in the future, God willing.