Food rationing for refugees planned as $650m pledged to UN remains undelivered

Millions of Syrian refugees face food rationing and cutbacks to critical medical programmes because oil-rich Gulf states have failed to deliver the funding they promised for emergency humanitarian aid, an investigation by The Independent on Sunday has found.

Arab states and aid groups, including Saudi Arabia, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar and Bahrain, have failed to deliver $650m (£420m) in pledges they made at an emergency United Nations conference in Kuwait four months ago.

The severe shortfall, together with predictions that the Syrian refugee crisis could triple by the end of the year, is forcing UN aid agencies to plan for food rationing and to scale back health programmes including vaccinations.

The World Food Programme (WFP), the food aid arm of the UN, says it is spending $19m a week to feed 2.5 million refugees inside Syria and a further 1.5 million who have fled to official camps in Jordan, Turkey, Lebanon and Iraq. By July, the WFP says, there is no guarantee that its work on the Syrian crisis can continue.

A spokesman said: “We are already in a hand-to-mouth situation. Beyond mid-June – who knows?”

David Cameron last night called on other governments to come good on their pledges. The Prime Minister said: “The scale of the crisis requires the international community to step up its efforts to ensure that we really are getting help to those who need it most.

“Britain was one of the first to respond to the growing humanitarian crisis and I’m proud of the role we’ve played since then.”

The IoS investigation tracked the flow of aid money from 42 states who pledged a total of $1.5bn at a high-level donor conference in Kuwait City last January. The scale of the missing pledges has left a large hole in UN aid budgets for Syrian refugees, with pledges from rich Gulf states accounting for more than half of the Kuwaiti conference total.

Senior sources in New York close to the UN Secretary General, Ban Ki-moon, said diplomatic back channels are being used by the UN to urge those Arab countries who promised to help to fulfil their pledges.

The emergency conference in Kuwait – hosted by the Emir of Kuwait and chaired by Mr Ban – promised to bring a “message of hope” to the four million Syrian refugees. Mr Ban proclaimed the outcome a shining example of “global solidarity in action”. The reality has been markedly different.

Using databases managed by the UN’s Office for the Co-ordination of Humanitarian Affairs – which records reported international aid, including NGOs, the Red Cross, the Red Crescent, and private bilateral donations – the pledges made in Kuwait can be measured against what has since been contributed.

Saudi Arabia pledged $78m. As of 1 May, the kingdom was recorded as contributing $21.6m. The United Arab Emirates pledged $300m. It has given $18.4m. Qatar, which will spend tens of billions hosting the 2022 football World Cup, pledged $100m to the UN effort. It is recorded as delivering $2.7m. Bahrain, which last month hosted a Formula One grand prix at a recently built $2bn circuit, pledged $20m. There has been no recorded aid given since. Iraq pledged $10m in Kuwait; nothing has yet been recorded in aid delivered.

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SOURCE: THE INDEPENDENT, UK