4 February 2016: Donors and humanitarian actors attending a conference in London have pledged over US$11 for relief and recovery in Syria and neighboring countries. According to the UN Regional Information Centre for Western Europe (UNRIC), this is the largest amount ever raised by the international community on a single day for a single crisis. In addition, multilateral development banks and donors announced around U$40 billion in concessional loans.

The UN co-hosted the one-day conference, titled ‘Supporting Syria and the Region,’ with the governments of the UK, Germany, Kuwait and Norway. The conference built on three previous pledging conferences hosted by the Government of Kuwait, and the 2014 Berlin Conference. The London conference brought together representatives of over 60 countries, as well as international organizations, businesses and civil society. It raised US$5.8 billion in pledges for 2016 and a further $5.4 billion for 2017-2020.

UN inter-agency appeals for the Syria crisis currently total US$7.73 billion, which is the amount needed to support the 2016 Syria Response Plan and the 2016-17 Regional Refugee and Response Plan.

In a joint statement, conference participants called on the international community to increase efforts, noting that the UN’s appeals for Syria in 2015 were only 56% funded. They said the Syrian conflict is now in its sixth year, and has killed around 250,000 people and displaced 6.5 million people, including around 4.5 million refugees from Syria who have fled to neighboring countries, such as Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan, Iraq and Egypt. Within Syria, around 13.5 million people are in urgent need of humanitarian aid, the statement adds.

UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon welcomed the commitment of conference participants to ensure ‘No Lost Generation’ of children as a result of the Syria crisis. He particularly welcomed the commitment to provide quality education to all refugee children and vulnerable children in host communities by the end of the 2016-17 school year, and to increase access to learning for 2.1 million displaced children in Syria.

UN-sponsored peace talks in Geneva, Switzerland, broke down on 3 February, two days into the talks, amid increased military hostilities in Syria. The talks were based on “close proximity diplomacy” in which the various actors met in parallel talks with UN mediators. The talks are due to resume on 25 February. They have been supported by the International Syria Support Group (ISSG), made up of the Arab League, the EU, the UN and 17 countries, including the US and Russia.

Gordon Brown, UN Special Envoy for Global Education, recently called for scaling up aid along the lines of the post-World War II Marshall Plan for recovery and reconstruction. [Statement by Conference Hosts] [Conference Website] [UN Press Release] [UNRIC Press Release] [UN Secretary-General Statement] [Gordon Brown Comments]