It has been four months since the World Bank set up an account to put some muscle behind the Board of Peace for Gaza, and it is at zero. You can point to the $17 billion in headlines, but those in the know will tell you donors have put a hold on any transfers. They are waiting out the political stalemate and the uncertainty on the ground, not to mention some open questions about who is in charge of monitoring this thing.
An empty fund, despite big promises
The UN Security Council has its Resolution 2803 to back the official mechanism, but no member state has put up any cash. Word is that what little has come in has been funneled to a JPMorgan account which, as one board mouthpiece put it, doesn’t have to be as open book as you might like.
Trump put his name to $10 billion from the U.S., and other members of the club were on record for another $7 billion. The Gulf states – Qatar, the Saudis and the UAE – each put in at least a billion. And yet the facility the World Bank is supposed to be running is a ghost town, making it hard to get any real recovery under way.
You had the unveiling in January at Davos, in the wake of an October ceasefire meant to put an end to two years of hostilities. But an EU-UN look at the numbers in April put the cost for the next ten years at over $71 billion. It’s a chasm between what is wanted and what is in the bank.
Governance model triggers donor caution
By the rules of the charter, Trump is the Chairman for Life and has the last word on budgets and where the money goes. Then there is the matter of a $1 billion fee for a lifetime seat if you want to be a permanent member. That has put off some of the usual Western allies.
A number of countries have kept their distance. France and the UK said no. So did Spain, Ireland, New Zealand and the Vatican. In a move to cast a wider net, the board even made overtures to Russian President Vladimir Putin, which only added to the tension.
If you ask the diplomats and officials why the World Bank channel is clogged, they will give you a list:
– Too much power in the chair’s hands
– Money being moved around the World Bank system
– No guarantees on security in a volatile environment
– Hamas won’t put down its arms
– The board is in a bit of a legal and institutional no-man’s-land
Stopgap cash, stalled machinery
With the main pot at nil, some have chipped in to make do. Morocco has put in about $3 million. The UAE has put $20 million on the table to pay the salaries of a 15-person Palestinian technocratic team that is currently in the cold in Egypt.
But a separate $100 million from the UAE to put together a civilian police in Gaza is on ice; Israel hasn’t given the kind of security assurances needed. The U.S. has shifted some $1.2 billion in aid to projects of its own, but the board has nothing to do with it.
Even a $50 million grant from Washington is being held up until they see some hard controls in place. Donors are of one mind: we don’t see oversight, we don’t see the money.
Knock-on effects for the NCAG
The lack of funds is already being felt by the National Committee for the Administration of Gaza, the U.S.-backed group that was to take over from Hamas. Back in April, the Palestinian side was told the committee wasn’t going to be able to get into Gaza because of the finances, and then the security situation made it worse.
Why the stalemate matters now
The scale of what needs to be done is only getting bigger. Local health officials say at least 700 have been killed in Israeli strikes since the October lull in the war, which itself was a response to the 1,200 or so people Hamas killed in Israel on October 7, 2023.
All told, more than 72,000 Palestinians have been put to death and most of the population uprooted, according to local authorities. You can have all the policy plans you like, but without a way to put up the money, you won’t be putting in place the services and order people need.
For the Board of Peace, an empty World Bank account is a test of whether you can be taken seriously. If the issues of governance and security don’t get sorted, the capital is going to stay where it is and Gaza’s road to recovery will be put off once again.
