UN humanitarian chief warns of worsening situation in Syria
UNITED NATIONS, Sept. 16 : UN Undersecretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs Martin Griffiths warned on Wednesday that Syria is caught in a downward spiral in humanitarian terms.
"The country will continue to be a place of tragedy so long as the conflict continues. Need and suffering will continue to grow in the near term," he told the Security Council in a briefing.
As authorities in Damascus indicate, an estimated 13.4 million people across Syria require humanitarian assistance. This is a 21 percent increase over the year before and the highest since 2017, he said.
The UN humanitarian response plan for Syria, at 4.2 billion U.S. dollars, is the largest and most expensive plan worldwide. But only 27 percent of the humanitarian response is funded. Just over a quarter of the people in need in Syria have a chance of meeting their needs through this humanitarian operation, he said.
And even if this total increases in the coming months, through the response and generosity of donors, funding is not keeping pace with the growing needs of Syrians, he said. "This is a fundamental and objective reality."
Griffiths called for greater investment in resilience activities. Failure to do so will inevitably lead to greater humanitarian need and greater tension, he warned.
Early-recovery and livelihoods programs are already an essential part of the humanitarian response in Syria. However, much more needs to be done to put people in Syria on the path toward recovery, he said.
"The UN and its partners need to design new programs. Authorities need to facilitate even more activities. And of course, we need donors to invest further in early recovery. I think I'm right in saying that early-recovery assistance is about 10 percent of the overall humanitarian response plan, and this needs to be increased if the essential access to basic services is to be met."
Self-reliance, in Syria as elsewhere, is the best way to help the people of Syria to regain a sense of the future in Syria, he said.
