Donor fatigue as nations commit USD 8.1 bn for Syrians

Palestinians perform Friday noon prayer next to the ruins of Al-Farooq Mosque in the Gaza Strip. Pic/AP

International donors meeting in Brussels have said they will commit 7.5 billion euros (USD8.1 billion) in both grants and loans to support Syrians battered by war, poverty, and hunger for the rest of this year and beyond.

Monday's pledges surpassed the modest USD4.07 billion that the United Nations had appealed for, but was also a significant drop from amounts pledged last year and previously--an indication of persisting donor fatigue as the world's attention is focused on conflicts elsewhere, including the wars in Ukraine and Sudan, and most recently Israel's war with Hamas in Gaza.

At last year's conference, donors pledged USD 10.3 billion, just months after a 7.8 magnitude earthquake struck Turkey and much of northern Syria, killing over 59,000 people, including 6,000 in Syria. This year's amount is meant both for Syrians inside the war-torn country and for some 5.7 million Syrian refugees in neighbouring Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan, which struggle with economic crises of their own and have been frustrated by the ever-shrinking aid.

$4.1bn
Amount that the UN had appealed for

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