Humanitarian promises instead of political solution

While the negotiations are paralyzed, donors meeting in London pledged to give more than $ 10 billion by 2020 to help Syrians

After more than two hours conventional diplomatic discussions, seeing succeed on the podium British Prime Minister David Cameron, his German counterpart Angela Merkel and UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Rouba Mhaissen suddenly cast a chill. The young woman, a Syrian who lives between London and Lebanon and created the humanitarian association Sawa for Development and Aid, asked a simple question: “Who in this room is Syrian?” Two hands went up.

“Stop talking about us. Tell us! “

This rare representative of civil society has put his finger on one of the many paradoxes of the large donors’ conference for Syria, held Thursday in London. If the international community care of the Syrian problem, it does it without the key stakeholders.

Under the joint chairmanship of the United Kingdom, Germany, Kuwait, Norway and the United Nations, the conference has mobilized more than 70 international delegations, who have pledged a total of 5.6 billion dollars in humanitarian aid in 2016, up 60% from 2015. Switzerland is participating this year for 50 million francs. At least 5.1 billion dollars are promised in 2020.

Read the full article (in french) on Le Temps website