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Boston Consulting Group pitched the UN agency for Palestinian refugees on working for its humanitarian effort in Gaza, months before helping launch a widely condemned rival aid scheme that sidelined the UN.
BCG approached UNRWA shortly after Israel’s military campaign began in late 2023, with a wide-ranging offer of pro bono work that never came to fruition, according to people familiar with the matter and correspondence seen by the Financial Times.
The firm’s work related to Gaza has stirred controversy since it was revealed that BCG went on to support the Gaza Humanitarian Foundation, an initiative backed by Israel and the US that has largely taken over food distribution in the enclave.
Gazans must trek dozens of kilometres along perilous routes to reach GHF food sites. Scores of civilians have been killed by Israeli forces when trying to access them.
The GHF programme, which is concentrated in southern Gaza and staffed by US private security contractors, controversially sidelined the long-standing system operated by UNRWA and other groups.
The mooted project for UNRWA would have been led by BCG consultants specialising in healthcare or based in the Middle East, according to a pitch deck for agency officials from December 2023 seen by the FT.
“BCG has a long history of supporting in the aftermath of disasters and humanitarian crises,” one slide read, above a timeline of a dozen earthquakes, weather events and pandemics whose responses BCG had worked on.
By contrast, the work for GHF emerged from the firm’s US defence practice. Phil Reilly, the ex-CIA operative who is leading security for GHF, was a special adviser working part-time for BCG’s defence practice for eight years until GHF was founded at the end of last year.
BCG has halted and disavowed its work with the project, saying it grew out of a feasibility study the firm helped to produce in October 2024 on a pro bono basis, but that subsequent work was “unauthorised”. Two BCG partners in the US defence practice have been fired.
BCG remained eager to find a way to work with UNRWA until January 2024, according to correspondence and people familiar with the matter. The consultants were initially introduced to UNRWA by the UN refugee agency UNHCR.
The firm pitched developing a new fundraising strategy for UNRWA and helping update the agency’s humanitarian response plan, saying it could “provide strategic guidance to leadership team and innovative solutions to tackle crisis and aftermath”. In the end, the two sides did not agree on a project.
An UNRWA spokesperson said: “During the exchanges, BCG seemed extremely keen on supporting UNRWA and extremely genuine, only they didn’t have concrete offers and we didn’t have concrete ideas.”
BCG said that, following the Hamas attack on Israel on October 7, 2023, it had “early discussions on potential pro bono support” for UNRWA, “as we did with dozens of humanitarian groups”.
“While we work with many UN agencies, in January 2024, following the suspension of funding to UNRWA by the US, EU and other governments, BCG decided that it would not work with UNRWA,” it added.
UNRWA has long been criticised by parts of the Israeli political establishment, which argues that its mandate to care for Palestinian refugees has perpetuated, rather than helped resolve, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Israeli officials accused 19 of the agency’s 13,000 staff in Gaza of participating in the October 7 attacks and many nations halted funding while the UN investigated the allegations. UNRWA terminated the contracts of all 19, one of whom is now being reinstated, although the UN said it had not been able to “independently authenticate most of the information provided” by Israel.
The EU and UK have since reinstated funding. The US has not.
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