Switch off the editor’s digest free of charge
Roula Khalaf, editor of the FT, selects her favorite stories in this weekly newsletter.
The Boston Consulting Group accused the UN Agency for Palestinian refugees for its humanitarian efforts in Gaza before it has a widespread rival aid program for the start that the UN is overrising.
BCG Shortly after the beginning of the Israeli military campaign at the end of 2023, the Unrwa approached with a far-reaching range of pro-Bono work that never came into play. According to people who were familiar with the matter and correspondence seen by the Financial Times.
The company’s work in connection with Gaza has excited controversy since it turned out that BCG supported the humanitarian Gaza Foundation, an initiative supported by Israel and the USA, which largely took over the food distribution in the enclave.
The Gazans have to hike dozens of kilometers along dangerous distances to reach GHF food locations. Numerous civilians were killed by Israeli armed forces when they tried to access them.
The GHF program, which was concentrated on the southern Gaza and was occupied by US private security entrepreneurs, has controversially exceeded the long-term system, which was operated by UNRWA and other groups.
The Mooted project for Unrwa would have been directed by BCG advisors who specialize in the healthcare system or the seat in the Middle East, according to a pitch deck for agency officials from December 2023, which was seen by the FT.
“BCG has a long history of support for disasters and humanitarian crises,” read a film over a timeline with a dozen earthquakes, weather events and pandemics, on the answers of which BCG had worked.
In contrast, work for GHF from the company’s US defense practice was created. Phil Reilly, the ex-CIA employee who heads the security for GHF, was a special consultant who worked part-time for the BCG defense practice for Eight years until GHF was founded at the end of last year.
BCG has stopped and rejected his work with the project and said from a feasibility study that the company contributed to Pro -Bono base in October 2024, but this subsequent work was “not authorized”. Two BCG partners in the US defense practice were released.
BCG continued to find a way until January 2024 to work with Unrwa, according to January 2024, according to correspondence and people who are familiar with the matter. The consultants were initially introduced by the UN refugee authority UNHCR in Unrwa.
The company threw up a new fundraising strategy for UNRWA and helped update the agency’s humanitarian reaction plan that “there could be” the management team and innovative solutions to combat the crisis and the consequences of strategic guidance “. In the end, the two sides did not agree on a project.
A Unrwa spokesman said: “During the exchange, BCG seemed to be very interested in supporting Unrwa and extremely real, only they had no concrete offers and we had no concrete ideas.”
BCG said that after the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, “early discussions about potential Pro -Bono support for Unrwa had” as we did with dozens of humanitarian groups “.
“While we were working with many UN agencies in January 2024 after the United States, the EU and other governments were financing to Unrwa, BCG decided that it would not work with UNRWA,” added.
Unrwa has long been criticized by parts of the Israeli political establishment, which argues that his mandate to provide Palestinian refugees is not maintained when solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israeli civil servants accused 19 of the 13,000 employees of the agency in Gaza to take part in the attacks on October 7, and many nations have hired the financing, while the UN examined the allegations. Unrwa announced the contracts of all 19, one of which is now being hired, although the UN said it was unable to authenticate most of the information provided by Israel independently.
Since then, the EU and Great Britain have restored financing. The United States doesn’t have it.
