The United Nations Correspondents Association held a press conference on Friday, February 9th in the UNCA meeting room with UNRWA’s Director of Operations in the West Bank, Scott Anderson, and the Director of UNRWA’s Representative Office in New York, Peter Mulrean who discussed how the US funding freeze is affecting day to day operations on the ground for
UNRWA’s beneficiaries in Gaza, the West Bank, Syria, Lebanon and Jordan.
BIOS:
Scott Anderson is UNRWA’s Director of Operations in the West Bank, and has served in this role since May 2016. He directs UNRWA’s West Bank programs, operations, and resources including managing the agency’s education system, health clinics, relief and social services, and microfinance initiatives for a population of more than 750,000 registered Palestine refugees. Prior to his current position, Anderson served as deputy director of operations for UNRWA in the Gaza Strip. He has experience working with the UN’s Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) as the deputy head of office in Kabul, Afghanistan. Anderson honorably served for 21 years in the U.S. Army, where he retired at the rank of Major. Anderson holds a B.A. in Management from the University of Maryland, College Park, as well as an MBA specializing in Human Resource Management from Touro University International.
Peter Mulrean joined UNRWA’s Representative Office in New York as its Director in September 2017. This follows a career of nearly 30 years as a U.S. diplomat. Until February 2017, he was U.S. Ambassador to Haiti, leading a 1,300-person embassy focused on promoting Haitian governance, economic development, public health and law enforcement. Prior to that, Mulrean was U.S. Deputy Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva. Throughout his diplomatic career, Mulrean focused on crafting assistance programs to support foreign policy priorities, starting in the early 1990’s with assistance to Central and Eastern Europe. He also was regional director of a program supporting reform in the Middle East, and coordinated local governance and development programs across Afghanistan. Mulrean holds a bachelor’s degree in government from Harvard University.
Contact:
Paige Kollock, paige@marathonstrategies.com
Samantha Kupferman, samanthak@marathonstrategies.com
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