UN appeals for Syria: a look at the numbers

The UN said this week that it needs $7.73 billion to help people inside Syria, Syrian refugees, and the communities hosting them in 2016.

A London donor conference is set for February.

UNDP Administrator Helen Clark said in a statement that aid focus needs to go beyond traditional humanitarian relief. “Conventional approaches of ‘relief now, development later’ will not work in Syria or in other protracted crises,” she said. “Refugees, host communities and internally displaced people in Syria need livelihoods. They need basic services, like health, education, water, sanitation, electricity, and garbage removal.”

See: A different sort of aid for Syria

Past UN appeals for Syria are severely underfunded – the UN received only 53 percent of the 7.4 million it said it needed for 2015. As the war drags on, donors have given more but the percentage of needs they meet has decreased. A look at the numbers:

Photo: Wendy Bruere/UNICEF

Aid to Syria: who's helping?

By Annie Slemrod

The United Nations, the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway and Kuwait this week announced they would jointly host another conference next year in an attempt to bridge gaping shortfalls in existing appeals for millions affected by war in Syria.

The next donor conference, to be held in London in February, will be the fourth of its kind. Of the $8.4 billion the UN has requested in 2015 to meet the needs of 13.5 million vulnerable and displaced people inside Syria and nearly 4.3 million refugees in neighbouring countries, only $3.4 billion has been forthcoming.

An additional $1.2 billion has been raised outside the scope of the UN appeals.
Here’s an overview of who’s been giving:

The UN has two appeals for Syria: the first $2.9 billion plan is meant to help people inside the country, and is 39% funded. Donors have produced 51% of the second appeal, a $4.5 billion plan to help refugees and the countries where they live.

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Cover photo by Eleonora Vio/IRIN

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Timeline: Punitive Home Demolitions

By Annie Slemrod in Jerusalem

As tensions run high in Jerusalem and the West Bank, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has called for “expediting the demolition of terrorists’ homes” and the Israeli army appears to be acting in tandem, razing two Palestinian homes in East Jerusalem overnight Monday.

The demolitions added fuel to the fire in East Jerusalem, where clashes have taken place since Israel barred many Palestinians from the old city over the weekend. The ban came after a Palestinian man stabbed two Israelis to death in the old city and another Israeli was wounded in a separate stabbing.

The newly destroyed homes belonged to the families of Ghassan Abu Jamal and Mohammad Jabis. Abu Jamal and an accomplice attacked a Jerusalem synagogue in November 2014, killing four. He was shot dead by police. Jaabis was also shot dead after driving a tractor into a bus in August 2014, killing one.

Amnesty International has called punitive home demolition “flagrant collective punishment.” Israel halted the practice in 2005, but it appears to be back with a vengeance.  IRIN looks at the history of Israel's controversial anti-terror tactic: