The Issam Fares Institute for Public Policy and International Affairs (IFI) at AUB and the United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), are organizing an international conference on October 8 and 9, 2010, 8:00 am to 5:00 pm at Bathish Auditorium, in West Hall. The conference will address UNRWA's six-decade-long experience in supporting Palestinian refugees. The program will focus on a number of emerging themes in UNRWA's work, such as protection, camp governance, community engagement, and camp improvement, and will identify policy and research needs while exploring how UNRWA and academia can work together to address priorities, and how UNRWA should prepare itself for the future.
The opening session of the conference will be chaired by SBS professor Sari Hanafi. Professor Karim Makdisi, IFI’s assistant director, will speak next. He will be followed by Maya Majzoub, head of the Lebanese-Palestinian Dialogue Committee, and Abdallah Abdallah, Palestinian Ambassador to Lebanon. The keynote address will be given by Filippo Grandi, UNRWA's Commissioner-General.
Seven more sessions will be held in the conference.
Immediately after the conference, IFI will be hosting a round-table discussion on October 9 between 5 and 8 pm in Auditorium B1, in College Hall.
The facilitator will be Karen AbuZayd, former UNRWA commissioner-general and Fateh Azzam, the regional representative of the UN's Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights ( OHCHR). Representatives of the host country, Palestinian factions, Palestinian civil society, and UNRWA will discuss UNRWA and its relations with Palestinian refugees in the re
