text: Development account The development account line item helps fund capacity building projects at national, subregional, regional and interregional levels. In 2017, the development account budget was $1.9 million.
  Extrabudgetary projects
  The extra budgetary projects line item supports economic and social development under the seven subprograms of the Commission: Economic Development and Integration, Gender and Women Issues, Governance and Conflict Issues, Natural Resources, Social Development, Statistics and Technology for Development. In 2017, extra budgetary projects budget was $3.2 million.
  Israel-Palestine report controversy
  On March 15, 2017, UNESCWA released a report accusing Israel (not a UNESCWA member state) of being an "apartheid regime" due to Israel's relations with Palestinians both inside and outside Israel. The report was officially withdrawn and removed from UN websites after criticism from the Secretary-General who said it had been issued by ESCWA without approval.
  The document was co-authored by Richard Falk, professor of International Law and Practice Emeritus at Princeton University and a former UN human rights investigator for the Palestinian territories, and Virginia Tilley, professor of Political Science at Southern Illinois University. It criticised Israel's law of return for Jews. Falk and Tilley wrote: "Israel defends its rejection of the Palestinians' return in frankly racist language: alleging that Palestinians constitute a 'demographic threat' and that their return would alter the demographic character of Israel to the point of eliminating it as a Jewish state".