Donors pledge US$ 3.8 billion to help people affected by the constantly deteriorating Syria crisis
31 March 2015
In an expression of continued solidarity with the millions of children, women and men affected by the devastating crisis in Syria, now in its fifth year, international donors today pledged US$3.8 billion at a conference hosted by the Amir of Kuwait, His Highness Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Jaber Al-Sabah.

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Third International Humanitarian Pledging Conference for Syria. Remarks by António Guterres, United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees. Kuwait City, 31 March 2015
UNHCR – Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees
31 March 2015 [Excerpt]
…The Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan (or 3RP) aims to stop this downward spiral, to ensure we can meet refugees’ basic needs and prevent them from sliding into abject poverty in increasing numbers. We are requesting continued humanitarian support for core protection and life-saving activities, also to prevent some of the terrible protection risks facing refugees – such as child labor, child recruitment, sexual exploitation and abuse, or early marriages. The appeal also provides for shelter, water and sanitation, minimum health care requirements, and for bringing more children into school.

But this appeal is different from previous ones, in that it recognizes both the immediate and the longer-term imperatives of responding to the crisis by combining a humanitarian and a resilience component. This solid and innovative document was developed in close collaboration with over 200 partners and the host governments. The UNDP Administrator will speak in a few minutes about our common efforts to assist host communities, and to strengthen the ability of refugees and local families to cope with the crisis.

Let me just stress one thing – it is essential that immediate humanitarian needs and longer-term resilience programmes are supported from the totality of resources available to donors. Humanitarian assistance budgets are vastly insufficient to meet even the most basic needs, and development actors must step forward to support the longer-term efforts.
The programmes we are appealing for today have been designed with great emphasis on innovative responses and cost effectiveness. We increasingly use biometric registration and iris scan technology to make targeted assistance to the most vulnerable more effective. Food vouchers and cash grants for very vulnerable families not only allow them the dignity of choice, but we are starting to see that cash grants help to improve overall quality of life. But thousands of needy families are on a waiting list and cannot receive this support unless more funding is made available.

One of the risks that worry me most continues to be the growing threat of a lost generation of Syrian children. With half of all school-aged refugee children and another 2 million in Syria out of school, the number of young people at risk is staggering. They have already lost their childhoods to a terrible war and are now also facing lost futures. Even though humanitarian agencies have made some progress in reinforcing national and community systems to give refugee children better access to education and protection, increasing poverty risks reversing those gains when it forces parents to take their children out of school. With only about 40% of the identified needs funded in 2014, the No Lost Generation initiative needs considerably more support.

…As I said at the beginning, this is a dangerous tipping point. If we fail to provide adequate support to refugees and their hosts, and to build up their resilience to cope with the long-term pressures of this increasingly protracted refugee situation, we risk a further destabilization of the entire region. It is true that humanitarian action can only be a palliative. As the Secretary-General has said, without a political solution to the conflict, we will only find ourselves with greater and greater humanitarian needs. It is our duty to do everything we can to protect and assist those who face the very worst impact of this violent war – the people of Syria.