16 Jul 2012

GENEVA / SYRIA DONORS' CONFERENCE

A UN – supported humanitarian appeal for Syria remains only 20 per cent funded, and monies are urgently needed to meet the growing needs of the Syrian people, a UN official reported today.
CH UNTV

Posted at: July 16, 2012 11:46 am

Duration: 04:40

Available in: SD

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STORY: GENEVA / SYRIA DONORS' CONFERENCE
TRT: 4:00
SOURCE: CH UNTV 
RESTRRICTIONS: NONE
LANGUAGE: ENGLISH / NATS

DATELINE: 16 JULY 2012, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

SHOTLIST:

FILE – 2011, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

1. Wide shot, exterior Palais des Nations

16 JULY 2012, GENEVA, SWITZERLAND

2. Pan left, from journalists and cameramen to John Ging talking to reporters
3. SOUNDBITE (English): John Ging, Director of Operations, OCHA: 
"We come together today in the face of an escalating conflict which is having the predictable devastating humanitarian and human impact.  The physical impact of the conflict on hundreds of thousands of people in terms of their lives and livelihoods being destroyed, the psychological impact on those same people and particularly on the children, cannot be overstated or over-emphasized and should be a tremendous motivation to those who are involved in efforts to resolve the conflict."
4. Cutaway, camerawoman
5. SOUNDBITE (English) John Ging, Director of Operations, OCHA: 
"We face a lot of obstacles in the efforts to meet the needs of the people.  We face tremendous political obstruction from the government of Syria, we face an incredibly dangerous operational environment because of the conflict itself and we face capacity issues among the organizations who are trying to scale up physically from no humanitarian, or very little humanitarian operations to a massive humanitarian operation."
6. Cutaway, journalists
7. SOUNDBITE (English) John Ging, Director of Operations, OCHA: 
"The situation is deteriorating so in spite of the scale up, the gap between the needs and the means is very much still there.  So we ask out donors to invest in this scale up."                                    
8. Cutaway, journalists' notebooks
9. SOUNDBITE (English) John Ging, Director of Operations, OCHA: 
We need more money.  If we don't get more money, people will die and there will be more humanitarian suffering.  The needs will continue to grow as long as this conflict continues.  That is a sad and tragic truth.  To enable humanitarian action in an incredibly difficult, dangerous environment, funding is now the number one priority in terms of unlocking a bigger humanitarian response, that's both for inside Syria and also for the regional refugee response.
10. Cutaway, journalists 
11. SOUNDBITE (English) John Ging, Director of Operations, OCHA: 
"The agreement was difficult to negotiate, difficult to secure but now the focus is on implementing it and we have a positive engagement with the Syrian government on its implementation on the ground."
12. Cutaway, journalists
13. SOUNDBITE (English) Panos Moumtzis, Regional Refugee Coordinator, Office of the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR):
"We have seen a continuous arrival of an average of 700 refugees crossing the border daily.  There are days when we have seen 1000 or more and this is a combined number for the four neighboring countries, Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq.  We see mainly a lot of families coming, 75% women and children, actually half of those crossing are children and many of them, most of them arrive in a really destitute situation, arriving BUT with the clothes they are wearing.  So they are really in urgent need when they arrive to be assisted and helped when they cross the border."
14. Cutaway, journalists
15. SOUNDBITE (English) Claus Sorensen, Director-General, European Community Humanitarian office (ECHO), European Commission:
"With every hour and every day that passes without a political settlement, we will be faced with increased humanitarian needs.  So we are actually, as I said the last time, running behind a train and not only is that train of humanitarian suffering moving, but it's accelerating."
16. Med shot, journalist writing

STORYLINE:

A UN – supported humanitarian appeal for Syria remains only 20 per cent funded, and monies are urgently needed to meet the growing needs of the Syrian people, a UN official reported today.
 
"The gap between the needs and the means is very much still there", the Director of Operations at the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said today (16 July) at the United Nations in Geneva.

Briefing journalists following the meeting of the Humanitarian Forum for Syria, which met for the fourth time in Geneva, John Ging who is also the Forum Chairman said the number one priority for continuing operations was funding.

The meeting between UN agencies, member states, national Syrian organizations and other humanitarian bodies met to discuss the need to urgently scale up aid operations in the country in the face of the growing insecurity, and appealed to donors to meet their pledges.

Ging urged the international community for more money.  "We need more money.  If we don't get more money, people will die and there will be more humanitarian suffering", he told journalists.

Humanitarian agencies face many obstacles in Syria, John Ging said, including "tremendous political obstruction from the government of Syria", a dangerous working environment and the sheer scale of the operation.  Despite these conditions, efforts to deliver aid to people had been scaled up, he said.

Asked by a journalist about the relationship with the Syrian government, Ging said that the agreement was difficult to secure but that the engagement with the government regarding implementation, was "positive".

Speaking on behalf of the UN Refugee Agency, who are currently assisting 112,000 Syrian refugees in the neighboring countries of Turkey, Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq, Panos Moumtzis said that some days, a thousand refugees cross the borders fleeing the fighting, and that they are all in desperate need.  Half of them, he said, were children.  Moumtzis also said that increased funding was vital to continuing the operation.

Claus Sorensen from the Humanitarian Office of the European Union (ECHO), said that with "every hour and every day that passes without a political settlement, we will be faced with increased humanitarian needs".

The humanitarian appeal for Syria remained only 20 percent funded. The Forum has appealed for $193 million to meet the need of regional refugees; and $189 million for the response plan for Syria.

Filed under OCHA - UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs SYRIAN ARAB REPUBLIC.