Flickr/Anthony Gale. Some rights reserved.The international ‘Supporting Syria’ conference in London today will serve to burnish yet further Britain’s reputation as an aid-giver. The £1.1 billion spent over the five years of the crisis makes us easily the biggest donor after the United States – more than the European Union and, as British officials like to point out, twelve times more than the French.
British aid is financing vital work both inside Syria and among the 4.4 million refugees in neighbouring countries. It is also aimed at achieving a series of self-serving national goals. For David Cameron, in his foreign policy speech at the Guildhall last November, British aid to the region has become “a fundamental part of our strategy to keep our country safe.” More than that, he said, it makes us “number one in the world for soft power,” and added this chest-thumping observation: “I can tell you that soft power packs a real punch.”
The outcome of the conference, which Britain co-chairs with Germany, Kuwait, Norway and the United Nations, will be judged by its results. Each year of the Syria crisis the needs have got larger, yet in 2015 international appeals amounting to $7.4 billion were only 53% funded. With neighbouring countries under mounting pressure, the appeal total this year has risen to almost $9 billion. How much of that will be raised and translated into aid?
