Mr. Tom Fletcher, USG for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator – Statement at Brussels IX Conference, “Standing with Syria: meeting the needs for a successful transition", 17 March 2025

Brussels, 17 March 2025

As delivered

We need to meet this moment for Syria, yes, but not just for Syria.

Because this is a chance to show – and a time when many nations are in retreat from the world – that international solidarity and cooperation still matter and that coordinated international action can still deliver.

As several colleagues have said, let’s be in no doubt: We don’t have much time. The people of Syria do not need us to be commentators and problem observers – they need us to move with urgency.

Many of us have seen on our visits to Syria that the end of the Assad regime has not ended the needs that the people of Syria face. You’ve heard the numbers already; we cannot take for granted that Syria continues on this positive trajectory.

And that’s why your support today is so critical. Last year, the humanitarian response plan for Syria received only 35 per cent of the US$4 billion needed. And this year, our UN family and our partners represented by many superb colleagues here today are appealing for $2 billion to reach 8 million people.

And we’re doing so, as you know, in a context of deep and swift funding cuts.

Now some progress: Since the fall of the Assad regime, and despite that funding crisis, and despite the fluid operating environment described already, we have scaled up our humanitarian action.

We’re reaching millions each month with food, health, nutrition. Over five times the number of trucks has crossed from Türkiye this year as opposed to last year. We’re able to move more easily in many areas and we’re reaching new areas for the first time in years, including former frontline areas in rural Idlib, rural Lattakia, eastern Aleppo. And we have a practical problem-solving engagement with the interim authorities which is a step change to what we had before.

We are now moving to streamline coordination structures under the Humanitarian Coordinator in Damascus and the UN Country Team, under the Coordinator, has developed a transitional action plan – not quite yet a Marshall Plan, but getting there – to support the Syria-led transition process and coordinate with partners.

As we work to meet the scale-up necessary, we need your help.

One, to support the political process outlined by Geir [Pedersen, UN Special Envoy for Syria].

Two, the meaningful participation of women and young people – not just in Syria’s political process, but in its humanitarian response, because it will be a better humanitarian response as a result.

Three, as Achim [Steiner, Administrator of the UN Development Programme] will set out, we need to invest in Syria’s recovery, reconstruction and development. The people of Syria don’t want to depend on emergency assistance, they want to rebuild their lives.

Four, as Geir set out, we need sanctions relief to move further and faster.

Five, as Filippo [Grandi, UN High Commissioner for Refugees] will describe, we need to support refugee-hosting countries as well as the growing number of Syrians who have chosen to return.

Six, we count on your support, Mr. [Assad] Shaibani [Minister of Foreign Affairs], to ease the registration process for humanitarian actors including NGOs. As part of our global humanitarian reset, we commit to a higher proportion of funding for Syrian partners.

And finally, we hope to hear generous pledges in this session. We are under no illusion about the impact the cuts will have on our work. Your response today will decide whether we collectively deliver or whether we collectively stumble.

And after so long waiting for hope, the people of Syria – as we heard in the eloquent testimony from our civil society colleague before the break – expect us to meet this moment with decisive action, with generosity and with solidarity.

The price of failure will be much greater for all of us than the cost of success.

Thank you.