More than $10bn (£7bn) was raised for Syria at the all-day London donor conference, according to David Cameron – the largest amount ever raised for a humanitarian cause in a single day.
A total of $5.6bn was raised for this year, the British prime minister announced at the close of the conference, with a further $5.1bn for 2017-20, making it easier to develop long-term plans to help refugees in the camps and regions surrounding the war-torn country.
The pledges for this year are still well below the $8.5bn the United Nations has sought for 2016, especially if, as in the past, not all the pledges made by governments are forthcoming, or the refugee crisis deepens as a result of the Syrian army making gains on the battlefield.
Cameron insisted the cash represented a breakthrough but added “now we have made the pledges, we need to see the money”.
The conference convened by Germany, Britain, Norway and Kuwait will nevertheless overall be regarded as a success, particularly since multilateral development banks and donors also announced $40bn in loans, including many concessional loans. The event attracted more than 70 separate donations from governments mainly in Europe and the Gulf states. Russia and Iran will be providing cash outside the UN framework.
Cameron said the money would make it possible to provide education for all Syrian children in the region by the end of the 2016-17 school year, a pledge that requires one million children in the region currently out of school to be given access to education. A double shift system will have to be introduced in some schools so more children can be educated within existing facilities.
Cameron said: “This is not just morally right. It’s good for long-term security. We cannot have a generation of refugees left out of school unable to get work vulnerable to extremism and radicalisation”.
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