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The U.N. raises US$7 billion for Syria from donors during the third Brussels Conference on Supporting the future of Syria and the region, from March 12-14 2019.
57 countries and more than 20 international organizations and UN agencies came together to discuss the ongoing crisis in Syria in an international conference.
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From March 12-13, the 'days of dialogue' brought together more than 1,000 participants: civil society representatives from Syria and the region, ministers and decision-makers from countries neighboring Syria, donor countries, regional organizations, U.N. agencies, and the Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement. They discussed key themes affecting the Syrian people and the international response to the crisis.
The conference succeeded in mobilizing aid to Syrians inside the country and in neighboring countries, including for hosting communities, through pledges totaling US$7 billion for 2019, and multi-year pledges of close to US$2.4 billion for 2020 and beyond.
"Pledging is an important signal of the international community's solidarity with the people of Syria inside the country and with the neighbors of Syria, hosting huge numbers of refugees, and feeling the strain of that generosity," said Mark Lowcock, UN Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator.
According to the U.N., since March 2011, more than 5 million Syrians have fled the country and 6 million are internally displaced. More than 13 million people are in need of assistance. 370,000 people died.
Germany, France, Britain, and the Netherlands are defending a policy of withholding reconstruction money until a transition begins that would lead to Assad leaving power.
On Feb. 14, Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted his Iranian and Turkish counterparts, Hassan Rouhani and Recep Tayyip Erdogan, in Sochi to discuss constitutional reform and elections issues Syria is facing. The U.N. Special Envoy to Syria, Geir Pedersen, declared in an interview that “work is underway to form a Syrian constitutional committee." He also added that "it is not my role to say what the content of the constitution will be—this is a sovereign Syrian decision.”
"The constitution and all matters related to it are a sovereign issue that should be decided by Syrians themselves without any foreign interference," Muallem said in a statement carried by SANA.
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