 on the ground. The numbers are well known. As of yesterday, we had registered 2,564,000 Syrian refugees. But if you count all those that have not asked for support, the estimate is that more than 3 million people fled the country since the beginning of the conflict. We have 6.5 million Syrians displaced inside the country, 3 million Syrians in need of assistance, even if they are still in their usual places of residence, 240,000 in besieged areas, 200,000 areas encircled by the government, 40,000 areas encircled by different opposition groups with no humanitarian access and with dramatic conditions of food, like of medicine, like of everything that is essential for people to be able to leave. And so a real dramatic humanitarian challenge. And when we look at the refugee population, what is, for me, particularly impressive is how children are suffering inside and outside. I was in a tent in Zatri with a family for 20 minutes. And during those 20 minutes, a young boy, a four-year-old with a toy gun, was compulsively shooting. And nobody could stop him. Violence is way of life when he is four years old. So the risk of a generation traumatized by a young generation traumatized by violence and a young generation lost in many other aspects, even in the refugee population, only 30% of the children go to school. This gives you an idea of how far we are from meeting the minimum standards of adequate support for this population. The risk of a lost generation is enormous, and that is the reason why UNICEF has saved the children and several other NGOs have launched this no-lost generation project that we hope will be fully supported by the international community. And you see children in Lebanon begging. You see child labor. You see prostitution. You see early marriages. And I'm not talking about the even worse situation inside the country. I'm talking about the lack of capacity we all have to provide adequate assistance to the people that is outside the country, especially in Lebanon, where, as you can imagine, the situation is particularly difficult due to the numbers. And this brings us to the situation of the neighboring countries. Lebanon has today registered with the HCR 964,000 refugees. If you count all the Syrians in Lebanon, it is one force of the Lebanese population. To have a similar situation in the United States, you would have to have 270 times the number of refugees that exist in the US, to have the same number of refugees per capita as in Lebanon. As you can imagine, this represents a dramatic pressure in the economy, in the society, and, of course, together with the enormous pressure of the Syria crisis as a whole in the Lebanese security. And the Lebanese political life has been paralyzed by the fact that the different forces are totally divided because of the Syrian situation. The World Bank has recently conducted, with our support, a research on the Lebanese economy and society. And the impact of the Syria crisis was calculated at the end of 2014 as $7.5 billion, as the cost for the Lebanese economy. The same research estimates that the number of Lebanese in unemployment will double by the end of the year, that the number of Lebanese poor will be $170,000 more than what it was in the beginning of the crisis, which means that it's not only the countries that have a dramatic impact in their budgets, in their infrastructure, in their educational and health systems. It's the families because salaries go down, as Syrians are ready to work for whatever, as prices of rents and of shelter go up, as it is more and more difficult for the families of those communities to make ends meet. And so if you look at Jordan, you have a similar situation. The Jordanians estimate the cost in the end of 2014 to be about $2.8 million, just of the refugee component. Turkey has already spent more than $2.5 billion in direct assistance to Syrian refugees, even if Turkey has another capacity. For Kurdistan, a huge impact in the economy and society, and even for Egypt, it represents a meaningful impact. The problem is that the support of the international community, both to the refugee population and the Syrians impacted inside the country. The humanitarian support, even if very meaningful, as it was underlined, is out of proportion with the needs. And the support to those countries is even less effective in relation to their needs. Jordan has had some support. The US has provided a lot of bilateral aid to Jordan also from the countries of the Gulf. But Lebanon has been left completely alone. And I hope that with the present political evolution in Lebanon with the new government, the international community will be able to really assist this country in a way that avoids a collapse that would be a humanitarian disaster that you can imagine. And so from our perspective, there are three very strong appeals that we are launching at the present moment to the international community. First, a meaningful increase in humanitarian support to all those NGOs, humanitarian UN agencies, local communities, Red Cross, Red Crescent movement, that are working inside Syria in government-controlled areas and in opposition-controlled areas, and to those working in the countries around to allow for the Syrian displaced population inside and refugee population outside to see their rights respected in a minimum way and their dignity respected in a minimum way. Second, a very strong appeal for massive financial solidarity with the host countries, and especially with Jordan and Lebanon. I don't think the world can afford the collapse of Jordan and Lebanon. It would be a tragedy. And it would be an enormous threat to the global peace and security. These countries are having an enormous pressure. They cannot do it alone. It is absolutely essential to support them. There are now instruments to do it. Jordan has its national resilience plan. That national resilience plan that is led by the Jordanian government with the support of UN agencies like UNDP and different others needs to be funded. And it's very important that development money, not only humanitarian money, there is no way to do this with humanitarian funds. That development money helps Jordan overcome its difficulties, namely supporting the local communities in the areas where more refugees are. And they correspond to the poorest areas of the country. Lebanon has approved the so-called four-track road map for stabilization with the support of the World Bank. There is a trust fund the World Bank has created. But unfortunately, that trust fund is almost empty. And it is absolutely essential to be able to mobilize not only strong humanitarian aid for the victims, but also strong development, structural aid to the host countries. And then a third appeal. It is not acceptable that in many parts of the world, people think that to receive Syrian refugees is the responsibility of the neighboring countries and only of the neighboring countries. It is totally unacceptable to have 635,000 now registered refugees in Turkey and to have the Bulgarian border to Turkey closed when 8,000 Syrians cross into Bulgaria. This is not acceptable. It's not acceptable that Syrian families that have escaped one of the most horrendous situation in the country and try to get to Europe, they have to do it submitting themselves to smugglers and traffickers and goes to the Mediterranean and risking, and many of them, dying, drowning at the sea. There is something fundamentally wrong where Syrians that have suffered so much, when they try to reach a place where they try to find asylum, will have to die drowning at sea because there is no legal way for them to exceed those countries. And this is why we are making a very strong, a very strong appeal for all borders to be open to Syrians. Not only the borders of the neighboring countries. For mechanisms for legal admission of Syrians to be established, visa policies, family reunification policies, and other instruments, allowing people to come to places where they can find support without having to risk the terrible ways that they are risking now. And finally, an enhanced program of resettlement and humanitarian admission. And we are hopeful that both in Europe and in North America, we hope that soon the US will be able to also establish its own resettlement program for Syrians. It is absolutely essential to show to the neighboring countries, even if the numbers that will be taken will be small compared with the situation in the region, but to show that there is solidarity, to show that there is an attitude of burden sharing, to show that this is a collective responsibility with international community and not only a responsibility of the neighboring countries. Support the Syrian refugee population and the Syrians that are suffering inside the country. Help in a much more massive way those countries that are very generally receiving each one of them, hundreds of thousands, Lebanon practically one million already, Syrians. And at the same time, extending protection to Syrians all over the world as Syrians are becoming, as Afghans or Iraqis in the past, the global refugee population, these are the three main appeals we are making at the present moment. While we are waiting for what seems to be impossible, for a political solution to take place, it's clear for me there is no military solution in Syria. It's clear also that international community has apparently lost the capacity not only to prevent conflicts but to timely solve conflicts. And we have seen time and time again our international community and especially the key countries that are the key stakeholders in this conflict, those that support the parties to the conflict, they have not been able to come together to narrow their differences and to find a way to allow better conditions for humanitarian aid to be delivered. Let's see what will be the results of this recent resolution of the Security Council, but still a resolution that has no teeth, but not only that to create the conditions that would finally lead to a political solution of the conflict, knowing that there is no military solution and humanitarian efforts can only minimize the suffering, but will never solve the problem of the Syrian people and of the countries that are now surrounding Syria and having a dramatic impact. Look at what it is today, the conflict in Iraq. It's the same war in both sides of the border in Ambar. Look at what it is today, the multiplication of incidents, of terrorist incidents in Lebanon. Look at what it is today, the number of foreign fighters in Syria from Europe, some people say 2,000, some people say 5,000. For the minutes as the home affairs of Europe that I met recently, the major concern was not the refugees coming, was the Europeans going to fight in Syria and what they were, when they might represent when coming back. So indeed, it's not a question of generosity. To stop this conflict, to support the Syrians is a question of enlightened self-interest. This is becoming a nightmare for all of us, everywhere. Thank you, thank you very much, Mr. Gutierrez. You've, I think, given us a very, very vivid account of why the Syrian refugee crisis is not simply a Syrian or regional problem, but a global problem and a global responsibility. I will say that your reference to Syrians as an emerging community of both people strikes a particular chord. Syrians have suffered enormously in a number of ways as a result of this conflict. But when I talk with Syrian friends and colleagues, the reality that Syrians have become one of these communities fleeing to safety on these rickety boats across the Mediterranean is the one thing that seems to signal to them just how devastating this conflict has- And now I'd be fair to the worldies. Has become, yes, and how much more the world can do to help. Again, I would encourage you to, if you have questions, to make sure that you present them to our colleagues in the audience so that we can make sure we have a chance to look through them. Let me get started, you mentioned three appeals that UNHCR is now managing. Those appeals are critical. The track record of these appeals is quite mixed. We often find that pledges fall short of requests and that contributions fall short of pledges. The likely reality is that UNHCR will continue to struggle with less than it needs to respond to the critical demands of the Syria crisis. How are you thinking about your core priorities? You must be working through a process of triage in which you've identified needs as critical and some as secondary. Give us a sense of your thinking about how you see that process of triage unfolding where you think you'll be investing the core of your efforts over the coming years. This is not only UNHCR problem, it's a problem of the whole humanitarian community. The refugee response plan involves today more than 100 organizations, UN agencies, NGOs, Red Cross, Red Crescent societies. We are all together on these and we all suffer the same difficulties. The three attempts that are being made to try to deal with the problem of the lack of adequate funding are the following. First, an element of prioritization and when prioritizing, obviously, looking first into life-saving aspects, looking secondly into the areas that can increase the vulnerability of both the refugees and the host communities and finally, a third priority, the areas that correspond to building resilience in those two communities. This has been the way we classify projects and the way giving the first priority, of course, the life-saving aspects and key protection aspects, the priority. The second instrument is targeting assistance, which is a painful instrument, but it is based on vulnerability assessments that we are conducting, especially with WFP and UNICEF together and based on those vulnerability assessments to try to support those families that are more vulnerable. To give you an example, in Jordan, we are giving monthly cash grants to 125,000 of the 585,000 refugees. Those were the ones that we found were the most critically in need, but of course, I mean, sometimes this is more based on the resources available than what would be a full recognition of vulnerability. And finally, innovation. Innovation in the sense to try to use more and more the instruments that have lower costs. And the experience is that if you move into cash and vouchers assistance to people, it's much better than to do material assistance and things of the sort that sometimes are more expensive and more than that do not correspond necessarily to the needs of people. This means to trust people and to empower people. I'm a strong supporter in humanitarian action of using more and more cash. In some situations, for instance, when you have nutrition requirements, food vouchers might make sense because they will allow for an adequate nutrition level and not only just distributing food. But the more I see humanitarian around the world, wherever markets work, wherever goods are available, I think it's better to trust the people and give them cash than to try to invent what needs they have and try to provide them with all kinds of things that might not correspond to their basic requirements. We are doing this more and more systematically together, all the agencies, and we feel that with that, we can spare a lot of money. For instance, in the winterization program, that was our key concern, last, well, this winter, I mean, the winter is still there. And I think that it's quite remarkable that no refugee died of cold during this dramatic winter. And it was a dramatic winter, which, remembering Lebanon, we had an horrible snowstorm before the winter came. No refugee died of cold. But it is wherever possible, the best way to solve the problem of people is to provide them with cash, instead of providing them with fuel and then with different assets to improve the shelter conditions. If you give them cash and if things are available in the market, that is the best way to take into account their needs. And they will know how to manage that. Sometimes people think that we need to make choices for the refugees, in my opinion. I trust, I have more trust in the choices of the refugee families themselves than in the choices of any bureaucracy to be, I mean, to use a rude word in dealing with these situations. So prioritizing, and especially core life-saving and core protection issues as the first priority. Targeting, which means not giving everything to everybody, but looking into vulnerability. And third, using instruments that are more innovative, but that allow for more efficient distribution of the support to the vulnerable families. Thank you very much. You mentioned the generosity that Syrians have shown to refugees and discussed the response of neighboring countries to this quite extraordinary population movement into their territory. And yet, in almost all of the cases, we see that the presence of Syrian refugees is becoming a source of tension between local communities, local governments, and refugees in Lebanon. There's been a refusal to permit the establishment of camps in light of Lebanon's history. In Jordan, we've seen efforts to manage movement across the border, in some cases to limit refugee flows, in part out of concern of their impact on the host society, the host economy, and country. How is UNHCR navigating some of the very different political contexts in which you're working with respect to this particular community of refugees? Well, we are in permanent negotiation with all the governments in relation to border management. And I think that we have reached some important successes here. I mean, Lebanon has kept its border essentially open. In relation to Jordan, recently, we managed to obtain concessions increasing the intake. Now we have about 600 to 700 Syrians coming every day when the numbers were much lower at a certain moment, which means the border is still managed but in a much more open way. Turkey, basically, even if they have a set of regulations, the truth is that whoever crosses illegally the border is registered and there's no problems. In legal crossing points, indeed there are limitations, but then if people cross illegally the border, people are immediately taken care of without any problem. With Kurdistan, it has been a mixed situation, but indeed we have already 240,000 refugees in Kurdistan. So we cannot say that the border has been essentially closed. The border that is clearly closed is the Iraqi central border, but that's unbarred. And you can imagine that it's the same war on both sides of the border. So it's really a situation of a different nature. And we have a complex negotiation with the Egyptian government that in the beginning Syrians were coming into Egypt without problems. Now they require a visa. So this is the ongoing negotiation that is taking place. But as a whole, I think we need to recognize that when these countries have taken 2.5 million refugees, we cannot say that they have been very restrictive in relation to the management of borders and we need to pay tribute to that generosity. What is essential to improve the attitude of those communities is to strongly invest in those projects. And as I said, both in Lebanon and Jordan, the two key countries for this, there are now instruments that allow the international community to support them in those projects that benefit substantially the local communities. We have in our own refugee response plan a number of what we call quick impact projects, allowing some support to the local communities. But it's just a drop in the ocean, more structural interventions, namely in the education system, in the health system, in the infrastructure, needs to have a development kind of approach. As I said, the instruments are already there. And now it's important that the international community uses development aid money, which until now was not available for that part of the world because they were middle income countries, uses development aid money to make a difference in the conditions in which the communities where refugees are can cope with the challenge of their presence. There is something of attention between programming and funding aimed at stabilizing the life conditions of refugee communities, ensuring that they have access to basic services, and not, perhaps, contributing to conditions that might encourage refugees to become residents of the communities in which they settle. It is inevitably the case that some percentage of those who flee as a result of conflict do not return home. For obvious reasons, host governments are, understandably, watching this very closely. How do you address that particular tension in the work that you do? Our experience with the Iraqi crisis has demonstrated that a robust resettlement program was the best answer for that, especially because the resettlement program was aiming exactly at those vulnerable persons or families that would not consider going back. Because they had been victims of torture or they have lost members of the family in a dramatic way, and the return is something that would be as traumatic as the flight. So the best way to reassure those countries that we are not thinking of a situation in which they would have to live with a residual population and, on top of that, a very expensive residual population because of their more dramatic needs is the best response that we have had in the past is a robust resettlement program. Until now, we have been careful in relation to resettlement. And the reason is because the conflict was still, I mean, in the beginning. So in the beginning, we had practically no resettlement situations except very, very, very dramatic protection concerns. Then we have launched, as you know, last year a program with humanitarian admission and resettlement, namely in European countries. Germany was the largest provider of opportunities, 10,000 opportunities for humanitarian admission. It's a kind of a temporary protection regime. But now we believe it's time to launch a more robust resettlement program. We are intending to soon convene a pledging conference and aiming at 100,000 vacancies for 2015 and 16, which means that it's time to really look at resettlement in a serious way. And when we try to look at resettlement in a serious way, there is only one country in the world that can guarantee that. It's the United States. Because if you look at resettlement in general, the United States resettles more people than all the other countries together. So keeping, of course, borders open, facilitating the access, namely to Europe or to the Gulf is important. But having a robust resettlement program will be, in my opinion, the necessary next step to make governments feel that they are not let alone in this situation. Well, several weeks ago, I heard a number of the Syrians that had been permitted to resettle in the United States. I believe that number was 45. There have been commitments from the Department of State to dramatically expand that number. But clearly, if we're to support UNHCR objectives, that would need to be a very significant increase. And I am hopeful that, I mean, the American Gulf, I know we know that the government is discussing these things. And I mean, it's a complex issue. It is, indeed. We are also, we need to understand security concerns and many other aspects. But we are hopeful that the US will have a meaningful contribution for the resettlement of Syrians in the near future. Thank you. Let me ask a couple of questions from our audience. One concerns the internal and external constraints that inhibit UNHCR from achieving its full impact. And it would be helpful, perhaps, in particular because we're cosponsored this morning by Oxfam America, to discuss the ways in which some of your international NGO partners are helping you to deal with the external and internal constraints that you confront. And the second question has to do with how the very volatile and fluid nature of the conflict dynamics and shifts in the nature of the conflict over time have affected the way you engage on the Syrian conflict? Well, first of all, without the NGO community, it would be absolutely impossible to deliver. I mean, there's no way we can do it alone. As I mentioned, the refugee response plan has more than 100 organizations on the ground. And inside Syria, also, there is an extremely important contribution by NGOs of two natures. Those NGOs that can operate from Damascus and those NGOs that operate in areas that are under the control of the opposition and operate from outside the country, namely from Turkey. And a number of American NGOs have done a fantastic job on that, where the UN is not allowed to act. And we'll see now the result of the negotiations that are taking place after the Security Council resolution to see to what extent these will allow to improve, meaningfully, the excess to be populations in distress. So the biggest problem outside Syria is resources. And to a certain extent, to deal with some government policies you mentioned, the Lebanese do not allow for camps. We also wouldn't like to have camps, but we'd like to have some transit centers that would allow to address the problems of people that have no adequate shelter. And it's very difficult to find it, because, as you can imagine, with almost 1 million people in Lebanon in 1,600 locations, it's not simple to find places for people to be. So many of them have created kind of spontaneous makeshift camps that are very, very difficult to support. We would like to have more flexibility from the government on this. But I mean, these are small limitations compared with the huge problem, which is lack of resources. Inside Syria, the key question is not resources. Even resources is excess, but possibly to exceed populations in distress that it is not possible, either because we are not allowed or because of the insecurity that prevails and does not permit those areas to be reached. Thank you. If I may, on this, I would like to say that I'm hoping that the negotiations that are now taking place after the security health resolution will allow for some meaningful improvements in these questions that until now have not been properly addressed. Have you seen any specific improvements as I said? Not yet. Negotiations are taking place at the present moment between the UN system, the Syrian government, the Turkish government. I mean, we'll see the result of it. Next week, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon will report to the Security Council on progress. And that's where the result of these negotiations will be absolutely crucial, whether they will or not introduce a qualitative change in the way we are able to do business, especially inside Syria. The big question is inside Syria, not outside, where, of course, as refugees are under the protection of the other governments, it's relatively, with all the limitations, but there is not a structural problem that doesn't allow for adequate humanitarian aid to be delivered. We have a couple of questions that ask for more detail about two specific communities. First, can you talk about specific needs of women and girls inside Syria as refugees? Also, what is UNHCR doing about ensuring that support is designed for women and girls, and that such support reaches them? I'll just ask both at once. The second concerns accounting for and addressing the needs of unregistered refugees. Do you have any estimates as to their numbers? Do you have any thoughts as to why they're not being registered and why they're not opting in to a system that does provide some support? Well, first of all, we have two essential protection priorities. One is child protection, and the other is especially prevention and response to sexual and gender-based violence, but also other aspects related to the empowerment of women as a way to limit the kind of dramatic situations that women and girls can face. These are programs in which together with a number of NGOs, especially those that are more specialized, we have been doing our best outside Syria, that's still a long way to go. We still have early marriages. We still have family violence. We still have situations of rape in some. But of course, the most dramatic situation is inside Syria. And inside Syria, let's be honest, even if we have these programs, if we are doing what we can, both in prevention and in response, it's also proportional to the needs. And in many of the situations, there is simply no access and no knowledge of the problems that exist. So outside Syria, I think we have a relatively successful program, even a long way to go. Inside, it's still a nightmare. The second question was. Concerned unregistered refugees. With unregistered. There are two kinds of unregistered refugees. The most common kind is the people that do not need support. And they benefit from having access to the country. They have family, they have friends, they have money. So they don't want to be even stigmatized as refugees. So they just go on. But we have one particular difficulty. Some groups in Lebanon, and probably this is the origin of the question, and namely, Christians in Lebanon were afraid of registration as refugees because they felt that this could be, as they were not fleeing the government, this could be seen as a kind of a taking sides against the government and feeling that this would not be properly understood, as they might be willing to go back. And this Christian community was very strongly supported by the Lebanese caritas, the church. And we have done a lot to explain that this was not the right perception. It was very important that they could register and they could benefit from the assistance. We had an important program to reach out to these communities. And I think this program has been quite successful. But there are still some areas where we found some reluctance in people to come and present themselves as refugees with the fear that this would have a political implication in their relations with their families or whatever inside Syria. We hope that this will be progressively solved because, as I'm saying, we have been reaching out to these communities quite successfully. So they are coming more and more. And the number of unregistered in Lebanon has substantially diminished. But there is still a concern about how to reach these communities when its Christian groups, as probably the majority are, we rely a lot on the action of, in particular, caritas, but also other church-related face-based organizations that are doing a very important job in making sure that there are no gaps with these populations. Thank you. For many governments, the possibility that refugees could become mobilized as combatants to participate in conflict or that refugee communities might become infiltrated by and heavily influenced by armed actors is a significant concern. It isn't a special concern, I think, in the United States. What sort of measures does UNHCR take to be sure that armed actors are not exploiting the resources that you provide to refugee communities or not using your presence as an additional means to advance their own agendas? That depends, essentially, on our dialogue with the governments. Because we have no law and order mechanisms. We have no police. We have no instruments to guarantee that there are no recruitment mechanisms or armed groups that are coming into camps. It sort of depends on government security forces' capacity. So there has been intense negotiation and discussion with governments. I would say that in Turkey, there is a remarkable, remarkable behavior of the Turkish authorities. Because we all know that the Turkish border is very porous to weapons and to fighters and whatever. But until now, in refugee camps, there was a very clear respect of its civilian and humanitarian nature. No recruitment has taken place. No weapons have entered. No armed groups have entered. So in this regard, I think that things have been quite well managed by the Turkish authorities independently of what happens. In Turkey, other areas. In Jordan, we had very, very difficult problems in Zatri Kamp. Zatri Kamp has 100,000 people, a very limited presence of Jordanian security forces. So I mean, this was a very challenging situation. Things have improved quite substantially in the recent months. But I cannot guarantee that, I mean, in a city of 100,000 people with very few security forces around, it's almost impossible to guarantee that you don't have here or there any filtration or a possibility of recruitment or whatever. So there, I have to say that we believe, as things have improved, but it's not full proof, I mean. You might have incidents of different nature. In Kurdistan, we believe that the Kurdish authorities have been acting quite effectively on that. So we are not so worried about it. And then there is Lebanon. Lebanon, there are no camps. So the population is scattered. When the population is scattered, we believe that the overwhelming majority of the people has nothing to do with these kind of activities. But it is always possible. It is always possible that you have recruitment taking place, that you have other forms of linkage between groups that cross the border for other purposes. Because, I mean, it's impossible to control. I mean, they are in 1,600 locations. And of course, the Lebanese authorities are themselves in difficulties to address the problem. And the Lebanese society is divided. I mean, I was recently in Arsal. Arsal is a city that today has more Syrians than Lebanese close to the border, close to the mountains where fighting is taking place at the present moment. I was seeing Syrians coming. And Arsal is a Sunni area. And around Arsal, there are Shia areas in which the Asbola has a strong presence. Obviously, the Lebanese among themselves are living quite peacefully, even if there are incidents here and there. But the link of these communities with the other side of the border is obvious. So, I mean, it's impossible to guarantee that this is 100% fully humanitarian. But I don't think that the humanitarian aid that is distributed has had any meaningful impact in the fighting that I'm quite sure. Both inside Syria and outside, there has been a lot of concern to make sure that humanitarian aid is delivered according to humanitarian principles and to the people that is in it. Thank you. With apologies to those of you who asked questions that we will not have time to get to, this will be the last question for the High Commissioner. We have a group of university students in the audience this morning. And the question is, what kind of programs are being offered to Syrians in refugee camps ages 18 to 22? And what can university students do to help deal with the challenge of the Syrian refugee crisis? Well, we have many situations. We reach the Syrians of access to the educational system and to the universities in the countries of asylum. We had a program of universities in different European countries that have accepted Syrian students. But as I said, only 30% of the Syrian children went to school. And so the percentage that is attending university is even smaller. But most of the countries, Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, and I think Lebanon, allow Syrian refugees to enroll in the universities. There's sometimes a problem of recognition of the, there are some technicalities on this, the recognition of the diplomas, whether they can prove that they had or not, the secondary level. But we have been making a huge effort with the authorities to facilitate those things, to have a maximum possible number of Syrians with access to tertiary education. Even with all those efforts, the number is still a small minority. And this question of dealing with a refugee population that clearly does not have access to the academic records that are often required for admission to university is a significant obstacle to enrollment. And for American university students who might be interested in expanding programs for Syrians to enter university in the United States, getting agreement from university officials to treat flexibly the qualifications of Syrian students who are arriving perhaps without having been able to write to Damascus University to get their transcripts or they're afraid to do it, would be a very positive step. Mr. High Commissioner, thank you very much. You've shared your wisdom, your experience, your insight. It's been a valuable experience for us all. Thank you very, very much. You're the best. Thank you very, very much. Thank you, Dara. Well, good morning, everyone. My name is Ray Offenheiser. I'm the president of Oxfam America. And let me just all reiterate, Steve's welcome to all of you this morning. It's great to see such a turnout for people interested in the Syrian issues, and particularly on this third anniversary of this conflict. And if I think we all take away any one message from the High Commissioner's comments and from the comments of our panelists, it should be that we should have no fourth year of conflict. And probably we should all be working to redouble our efforts to bring the conflict to some sort of a sustainable piece in the future. And that's a spirit, actually, of our getting together this morning. I want to maybe just begin before we go to the panelists. And we're very fortunate to have two Syrian representatives with us this morning, because we don't get, often, the opportunity to hear the perspective of Syrians in this conversation. And so we're very privileged this morning to have our two guests with us. I just want to say a little bit and complement to what the High Commissioner was saying about what Oxfam is actually doing in the Syrian context, maybe just to give you a flavor of what humanitarian organizations like Oxfam, Save Care, and others are doing. In our particular case, we are working inside Syria from Damascus, as the High Commissioner commented, with the complexities that are involved in that, actually providing water to communities on both sides of the conflict from location into Damascus, working with the International Red Cross, UNICEF, and the Syrian Arab Red Crescent. A very complicated operation. We're reaching 500,000 people inside Syria on both sides of the line, as it were. In Jordan and Lebanon, we are also present. We're present in the Zaatari camp. We've been working with a lot of our sister organizations in putting together the designing of the water and sanitation system inside that city of 100, 120, 130,000 people, as well as working with many of the informal communities in Jordan that are set up all over the countryside and people resident in the city in Amman and other towns and cities across the country. Same thing in Lebanon, whereas the High Commissioner said there are no camps and where there are 1,600, 1,700 different unique settlements with anywhere from 20 families to 400, 500 families that need unique services. So Oxfam is present in those places providing shelter, food, hygiene services, water, and in some cases legal assistance to the families that are in those locations. We're also, and this, I think, event is emblematic of it, we're also trying to do advocacy on the Syrian crisis. We're trying to bring messages about how we need to collectively, as part of the international community, push for some sort of a peaceful settlement to the conflict. This event is one of the many things that we're doing, and we hope you all join us in other sorts of event of this sort in the future. I think the critical thing for us in this peace process is bringing the Syrians into the center of this, particularly women and particularly civil society representatives who can speak on behalf of what's going on inside Syria. The narrative we're getting tends to be much more about the military conflict and the sort of negotiations in Geneva. But there's a lot of stories coming that we need to hear from inside Syria, and that's really what we wanted to focus on this morning. So in that spirit, I want to introduce our two panelists this morning, and I'm delighted that we are able to have them join us in having come a long way. And I want to introduce first, to my left, Raja Altali, who's the co-founder and co-director of the Center for Civil Society and Democracy in Syria. And to my right, Dr. Reem Turkani, who's president and founder of an NGO called Madani. Both of these groups are strong civil society organizations with networks inside Syria that are working on building civil society capacity, community initiatives in peacemaking, and really are trying to connect those actors inside Syria that are trying to really make a difference in moving the country toward some sort of a sustainable peace and doing it, as you might say, from the ground up rather than from the top down. So maybe just to get the conversation off to a start, I might just like to ask both of you to comment, to take us inside Syria from your vantage point and help those of us who are really sort of seeing this from afar, help us understand how the citizens of Syria today are trying to engage this conflict and what they're doing at the local level to try to promote peace initiatives and dialogue among the citizens within the Syrian context. And I'll leave it to you. Why don't you start me? OK. First, good morning, everybody. And thank you for Oxfam and for USIB to invite me and Rajat here. It's difficult to take you inside Syria. I mean, one thing we realized when we looked into the situation inside the country scientifically in every area what's happening, we realized that the situation and the dynamic is dramatically different between one area and the other. So there is no one model that fits all, whether how people are surviving, what is the dynamic of the violence, what is the incentive of peace in every area, can really vary dramatically. However, one thing, one of the patterns we observed that there is always a desire for peace coming from the civilians, translating into a pressure on the warring party to achieve peace. At the same time, there is a desire by the warring party to provide services for the civilians. There is a competition on providing services so that they can satisfy the civilians and better control the area. We did the start research on all the homegrown peace initiatives inside Syria. And we realized that there is numerous number of locally procured ceasefires, deals, truces, much more than people think. Because there was a narrative or a motto that was marketed during the last few years that there should be no dialogue or negotiations with the regime. So even when people negotiate peace on the local level, they don't want to talk about it, let alone all the other reasons why you don't want some time to spoil these deals when talking about it in the public. But once you start looking for it, you find numerous number of them. Some of them are successful, some are not. So we looked into details of why they're not successful, why do they fall apart for all the reason behind this. But there was really remarkable the numerous number of these attempts. 95% of the Syrians did not take on arms. They're not part of this conflict if we define it as an armed conflict. But many of them are part of it if we frame it as it started, as a conflict from people asking for rights and freedom against an autocratic regime. I think the kind of work that's going on inside the country is extraordinarily important in terms of building, I think, a peaceful outcome. I think we've seen from the case of Liberia, Ireland, and many others that citizens have to engage. And maybe Raju, you could maybe compliment what Reem has said a little bit about what you see in your work. Thank you so much, Ray. Thanks, Reem. And thanks for Oxfam America and USIB for having us here. I think maybe what I'll try to say here, some examples from different area in Syria. And in this way, I maybe reinforce what Reem said that localization is very important when we are going to analyze what's happening in Syria. And also, in order to find solutions, we cannot really find solutions for the whole country while if we are not looking like more locally. So I'll give an example from yesterday in Yebrud. It's in Damascus suburb, very close to Lebanese border. Yesterday, there was eight barrel bombs on Yebrud. I will explain a little bit the changes over time. So in October last year, we were trying to establish offices inside Syria in Damascus suburb. And at that time, we were advised that Yebrud was the best place actually to work there as advancing civil society, et cetera. Now, five months later, you cannot really work in Yebrud. But the civil society, the people, are trying to manage what's unmanageable. So there's around 5,000 people in Yebrud. And who are the people who are managing the humanitarian crisis, whereas there's no access. People like established a common kitchen. And they are trying to use the resources that they have as much as they can. So this is one example of the Damascus suburb. Since we are talking about the humanitarian crisis, and I agree with you that if it's possible, I don't see it, that there shouldn't be a fourth anniversary for the Syrian crisis. It's not there. I think it needs both solution. And it needs thinking out of the box to find a political solution for Syria. Since I agree with Antonio that there's no military solution. So maybe I'll give another example of Aleppo, and maybe another example from Latakia. So from Aleppo, since almost two months now, there's almost no civilians in Aleppo city, especially in the area where's, like, Masak and Hanano on Tari El-Bab. And just because every day there's a barrel bomb. And when you talk with civilians, so I live in Gaziantab, which is in the border of Turkey and Syria, almost the border. So there was like a lot of interaction between the Syrian who are coming, who in the beginning they decided that they don't want to leave their country. And then there's no way that they can stay any longer while there's like a barrel bomb coming every day. And when you are talking with people, there's this like dramatic feeling when you are just talking with your friend and he just missed a bomb. Just like it was like just away from him like two minutes or something. And then when he went back, he couldn't resist it. Like to go back and see what happened. And he just see like dramatic issue. I'm not sure how long it will stay with him. Like when he see like a hand or like there's no person basically, they can just realize, recognize the people just like from their material. And this is happening like with your friends and with your relative. And like people just talk more about like material issue. Like some people just want to go back to Aleppo just to see their like house, their flowers. Even if it's rented house, it's just like the memory. They just want to remind themselves with the memory that they have. And they are like maybe university student, most of them. They lost university for three years. But in the same time, they know that like this is their house that they want just like to remind themselves of something they love. And maybe in Latakia, I want in this like event, I want to remind myself and maybe other that ISIS is in Syria. And my colleague, Abu Dhaddad, he is a photographer. He was just going to do some filming and he was kidnapped by ISIS since June 26th of 2013. And we don't know anything about him until now. And it's there. There's big problems. And one of them, it's that extremist. I just want to remind everyone as Steve did that if you have questions, a partner's over here and we'll take them and we can hopefully, we'll have a little bit of time at the end to take some of those questions. Maybe just to go back to again, to stay with the local initiatives. I think the High Commissioner's message to us all was, this problem will not be solved exclusively in Geneva. And that perhaps it needs solutions at the global, the national and the local level. And you were talking a bit, Rheem, about some of these local initiatives. And you started to talk a little bit about what enables them to succeed and what undermines them. And I wonder if you can sort of pursue that a little bit more and maybe we can, you both might comment on that. What will enable us to see civil society be able to take action and build that local foundation for peace? Sure. The most important thing we found when we looked at the local initiatives is that neither the local initiatives will be able to make significant progress on its own nor like the top down level is able to make any significant progress on its own. There has to be integrated model where even the top level negotiations are guided by what's happening on the ground on track three and two. And at the same time, they're enabling these track three and two negotiations to succeed. We can just notice actually what happened in Geneva. When there was a lack of progress in Geneva, there was no impact for this on the ground. This solution didn't get any worse or any better. There was like almost completely disconnected. The track two negotiations that happened during Geneva, the Homs one, had nothing to do with Geneva two. It was initiated and led by the people themselves supported by civil society. If anything, Geneva was a little bit an obstacle on the way. When we looked at the local cases, when people themselves are taking the initiative to build peace whether on track three or track two level, we found the biggest spoiler that's away from the lack of political will from the regime. I mean, there is always lack of political will from all sides actually to achieve peace. There is always an obstacle. I'm saying put this aside. Let's look at the other factors. The most important spoiler was the regional and international interference. This is not a civil war. This is a complex war where we have internal conflict but we have regional and international conflict mapped over it. Just to make it more complicated, we have supporters from the region and international who are supporting one party or the other. And often they would interfere or upscale their support for one party or the other in order to just gain more influence. And that's often been a case of why a deal did not progress. I mean, there was for example, a case to achieve peace on all of Homs. There was like a few months ago, there was a small committee that was established in Homs to go and negotiate with the regime delegated by all the armed groups inside Homs to go and negotiate with the regime. It sees fire across the entirety of Homs. That was the first time we see a deal across the entire city. And it did not succeed because of direct interference from Iran. And we had one country supporting the an important armed group in Homs which is not exactly the regime. It's the pro-regime paramilitary groups that are supported largely by Iran inside Homs. And on the other side, we had the Islamic front which was supported by Saudi Arabia. So we had almost one group supporting Saudi Arabia, one group supported by Iran, face-to-face inside Homs. So the peace did not succeed because there is no regional deal that was brokered before this. In the Kurdish area, often we've seen the deals falling apart because of Turkish interference. In the Yarmouk camp, for example, outside Damascus, I've been part of a deal since July. And it was delayed because of Palestinian issues, Palestinian conflicts. So that's one thing. And the other second spoiler was the war economy. The fact that so many parties to the conflict right now benefit from the continuation of the conflict, not from the end of the conflict. They're making money out of it in all kinds of ways. We're selling arms or taking levies for the goods that enter the besieged areas, making money out of the delivery of humanitarian aid, all kinds of reasons. But we've seen cases where even when there is a deal that happened even in the war area outside Homs, there was a deal between the people inside the area. It's a besieged area with 600,000 people living inside it and between the regime, which was besieging the area. But who spoils it? It was the groups that were benefiting from charging tax on everything that enters and leaves that area. We've seen this in many cases. So we really have to work on combating war economy and ending regional interference. The third important factor is the lack of any independent mediator or monitor or peacekeeping force in some areas. So often those local peace deals will be mediated by the local people without any assistance at all. There's nobody independent to do all the communication, especially when it's very sensitive, like to have to communicate with the regime. And if there's a deal, there's nobody to monitor it. So often it falls apart because nobody is there to tell us who actually violated it and why. And just the fight carries on. We've seen this in many areas. And despite everything people say about monitoring missions that took place in Syria in 2012, actually in the first three weeks when the monitors were deployed, which was very limited number, 270 monitors only, of the country, the size of Syria, we observed 25% in the number, decline in the number of casualties. So that's remarkable. There was no reason in our view to call them out of the country. Actually, there was, you know, so that's why we think now there have to be more monitors. Maybe not all of Syria, but some areas are, the level of fighting is very high. But in many areas, you can achieve and maintain peace only by the help of mediators and monitors. I mean, I think the whole idea of local ceasefires is something that has been very appealing as even as we were heading into the Geneva process. I wonder if you might want to comment, Rajah, on the local initiatives of this sort, as well as maybe just picking up a little bit on Reem's point about what is it that the international community and those of us who want to be supportive can be doing to support civil society initiatives of the sort that both the organizations are pursuing and encourage perhaps a more granular view of the peace-making process that we could be supportive of in the lead-up to perhaps the next negotiating round. So when we are talking about peace agreement, so I think we need to distinguish between three layers. If we are talking about local peace agreement and also more about an official peace agreement and also when we are talking about the official peace agreement, which is Geneva, so track one, track two, track three. And at the same time, also when we are talking about local peace agreement, we need to think a lot about, it's not all the time, it's between the opposition and the regime. It's sometimes between different components of the Syrian society or sometimes between different armed groups, et cetera. So we were working on a program, it's effective participation of the Syrian community in the peace process. And we are talking about mainly on track three and track two. What we say, we work on identifying peace resources in Syria and when we say peace resources, we mean three things. If it's individuals or groups who are trying to establish peace in their community or on the national level or also mechanism, different mechanism that it's created in order to develop peace in their community or feedback loops between different actors or different initiative. So when we did the research, this is in December, the main absent was the feedback loops. People don't really communicate with each other. What's happening in Latakia, it's not really known in Deir ez-Zor or what's happening in Damascus, it's not really known in Aleppo. So this kind of feedback loops between the different initiative in the track three, it's not really known. And also when you are talking also about like any kind of communication channel between like the national level initiative and also the track three initiative and track one, it's like very limited and very absent. We can say it's absent as well. So this is definitely some work on it, but in the same time, maybe any Syrians here, maybe they agree with me that when we are talking about like inclusive and consultative process, peace process, it's those terms, inclusive and consultative, it's not really there in Syrian culture. So it's a little bit hard to talk about like inclusivity and consultative process. So and we cannot really talk about like deep peace or like lasting peace if we are not talking about like inclusive and consultation process. And this is needs definitely to be worked more on as Syrian community and Syrian organization. And also the politicians as well. So if I go back to your question about the international community, I think mainly what is the international community doing simplifying the situation in Syria, which will lead like to symbol solution, which I think this is a problem because most of the approach is coming from up down. So it's not like we are not letting the organic, so in my opinion, the best solution is to have to search for the organic growth and organic like initiative on the ground and try to support it without with like do not have approach. And so when we are talking with about like different local initiative, I'm not saying they are going to give the solution for the whole country, but I think like at someone like with natural and like reinforcement and emphasis of like just support not to intervene in those kind of initiative, they will come together to have like some pressure and some mechanism to impose peace in Syria. While it is making premature, I guess I'm wondering to what degree in the communities that you're moving in that there is some discussion or conversation about what a transition process might look like and what kind of dialogue would be taking place and what kind of architecture might have to be in place to enable that transition period to actually be successful. I know it's a bit into the future, but it probably is not premature to be thinking a bit about that. And I'm sure there are political elements within and around Syria that are thinking about that. I'd wonder from your perspective and from your colleagues, what is the sort of the discussion going on about what a transition might look like and how that might be sustained? There is not one unified view on this, but it's becoming clear that the transition has to be based on power sharing. It's not just moving power from one party to the other. There has to be a transitional period where all parties share power to reach hopefully a democratic civil Syria. The biggest problem right now in any scenario you build for the transition is the lack of partners because I'd say this has started initially as a movement for rights and freedom and to have a partner that is able to translate these demands into reality. You need political parties, you need civil society organizations. You don't have these in Syria right now on the scale required for a stable transition, mainly because of the violence. So we really need to act very quickly on ending the violence to enable the growth of the civil society initiative of the political group who will then shape the transition and will take things forward. Because right now there is just an absence of structure in many areas of Syria. There is an absence of state of governance. So it's really not quite clear that if the fight stops, who's gonna be running the show? What is going to happen? But talking to many Syrians, it's there is this clear headlines that people want democracy. Despite everything you hear about, some of those coming from the fighting groups, sometimes they have to carry certain slogans because of their supporters. People want civil democratic Syria. They want rights. They want equal citizenship. And right now any short-term solution is not going to be able to deliver this. So the focus of my view have to be in ending the violence or let's say as much as possible, there's not gonna be an easy solution as Rajat said. As a first step to enable the transition and the people, the most important thing, as I said, the tools for the transition, the institutions who can then participate in this transition to emerge and have a clear identity so we know how we can work with them. Sure. So as CCSDS, our vision for the political solution and this process in Syria, it's based on Geneva communique. So we recognize the importance point in Geneva communique about the transitional government money. And so we had kind of discussion about it. And it's, as I said before, and also the national dialogue. So any kind of this agreement for the political transition, I think it needs a lot of inclusive and consultative process. There's two things that we need to take into consideration that commitment of a human right violation should be taken into consideration that no one committed a human right violation or human right violation shouldn't be involved in any kind of transitional government body. And in the same time that when we are talking about mutual acceptance from both side on any member of transitional government body that we need to have also creative solution on and who are the people who will be in the transitional government body. It's very important that after three years of conflict, we need people who are committed to that as Reem said, like approach which is based on like the international human right and also democracy and secular state which respect all the difference opinion and the diversity which in Syria, which if we take it into consideration will be like enriching the country for the future. And if it was taken into a bad situation it might be causing bigger civil war than what we have now. So we're in Washington DC. There's a lot of policy wonks out there that worry and think about these issues on a daily basis, they get paid to do that. I'd be curious what both of your views are on the US strategy toward the Syrian problem or Syrian conflict challenge. And what would you wanna share with our both our students and those in the audience who come from the policy community about what you think of our strategy and maybe as a kind of a also reflection, what does it you both think that it's both, it's extraordinarily important that Americans, the American public knows about this conflict or care and or thinks about this conflict going forward. What's the message you wanna leave with the average American apart from the policy specialist that may be in our audience today. So let's start with strategy and then maybe end with the comment on the message to the American public. Which strategy? Raja, do you wanna take that? Can somebody tell you what is the American strategy towards Syria? There is no strategy. And this is not just an American thought. I think every party to this conflict, every actor and party in this conflict lack the strategy. And it's quite clear from the results. If we look at where Syria is right now, if we look at the scale of the humanitarian crisis, the level of violence, it's very clear that we all got it wrong. Whether it's Syrians, whether the countries who've been involved, the international community, even the regime itself, it's supported, they all got it wrong. Nobody got what they wanted out of this. There's an absence of strategy and there is an absence of understanding of the reality of Syria, the complexity of Syria. Because to have successful strategy, it has to be really related to the reality. What is the power structure in Syria? What is the Syrian society? And there was already a lack of knowledge. There was a gap in the knowledge about Syria, the power structure in Syria before the conflict. And that was quite obvious from all the policies that were drawn to address the Syrian conflict. I think very early on in the conflict, the US and many other countries took a position from the parties to the conflict, not the violation of certain values that the human right values. And that put them now in a very tricky position. Who are they packing exactly? Who's their opponent? Can we still, the conflict started one thing and ended up with another. It's not anymore the same conflict that started as rights against oppression. Right now we have a complex array of partner. We have a complex war, so many partners. All of them are violated human rights, maybe to different scales, but there's violation on all sides. It's not quite clear who is the Americans are supporting and why and what is the aim. My view, our view is that the support should be for the solution and not for a party of the conflict. There has to be a solution on the table that everybody supports. The Russians, the Americans, the regional partners, and this is the only way the solution is going to work and we're gonna have sustainable peace in Syria. But to keep stand behind certain groups and keep looking all the time, but oh my God, this is falling apart. We formed it, let's have another partner. We have to talk to the Islamic front. No, oh, there's no free Syrian army anymore. I mean, they're in a big mess. I would suggest that, well, no, focus on the solution and your partner will emerge out of this. Once you want peace, the partner will emerge out of this. Right now, I think the US was just trying to manage and re-manage the conflict and I don't think it's manageable anymore. It's already spreading across the region. It's becoming a threat to international peace and security and there is no way this can be contained. The best we can do to help Syria and the region is to help to transform this conflict, not just to end it, to transform it. So, because it's a justified conflict, there is an oppression of freedom and rights in Syria. There are some ethnic and religious rules to this conflict. We have to address this. All what we want is for the conflict to carry on but to express itself in nonviolent ways, not in a violent way that just led to the collapse of the Syrian society. Do you want to provide a lighter answer to that question? So maybe I will start actually with what is the US community, how's the interaction between the American community with the Syrian crisis. So when the revolution started in March 2011, I was actually in Boston trying to finish my PhD at that time at Northeastern University and I stayed in US until August 2012 and during that period of time, I felt like people are more connected. They do care, the American people, they do care more about what's happening in Syria and they resonate with the demand that people want, that oppression for 40 years from Assad towards the community, like people felt that there's right of asking freedom and human rights, et cetera. I left US in August 2012 and maybe because I am far away, I don't know, but I feel like, and I think I'm giving the message of Syrian people, they feel like people are getting disconnected, like it's like maybe they are having that as despair, as the Syrian people and I see it also with the Syrian people that after three years of violations and all this mess and the crisis, people start feeling, they started surrender and giving up and I feel like Syrian people feel the same thing as the international community and the people, I mean, the people more, like they are just like forgetting what's happening in Syria as it's not happening anymore. So I do encourage that more like actually that normal US people to be more involved and maybe like small initiative because when you are linking towards people who are doing the same thing as you are doing, but in much more difficult situation, I think this at least will help you and definitely will help them like to feel the empathy with other people and the support. So about the American strategy, I do think that what we need now is more concentration to find solution in Syria, it's very hard, but what is kind of like initiative or support or thinking which will lead to a solution in Syria? You started your conversation by saying that we don't want like the fourth anniversary of Syria, I cannot agree more. It's just like if we are able in one year to find like even like partial solution, I think this would be the best like working plan or like the strategy, is it working until now? I don't, I mean, we, like I gave example in the beginning of what I said about Hebrew, like if I can compare Hebrew like five months ago now, it's different like different situation completely. So I understand that like to change your strategy and your thinking all the time, this is very, very difficult, but in the same time you need to invest in order to find solutions. Before we turn to maybe questions, maybe I might, from the audience, I might just ask you one final question is, you're both working very hard on this issue and you're bringing a lot of passion to this and you're bringing a lot of thoughtfulness to this conflict and the way we're, and the way you're helping us try to see it. What, as you look forward, is giving you hope? Okay, before answering this, I would like to say, just pick up on this issue about, we don't want the fourth anniversary, I want the fourth anniversary, but I want the fourth anniversary of what started for three years ago, not what is, you know, what's happening right now. What started years ago is that the Syrians invaded the public space, which was close to them before and they started asking for their rights and speaking loudly and demonstrating, we want this public movement. We're not gonna have peace in Syria, we're not gonna have democracy in Syria if people don't, you know, enter engagement, but indeed we don't want what's happening right now, the, you know, the war and the violence. Now what gives me hope is that the civil society is the emerging civil society. It's very complex to define civil society in Syria right now. It's simply not the usual kind of typical internationally recognized civil society because it's working in a very, very difficult circumstances, but it's those people who are interested in solving the problems around them in their community, they're taking the initiatives, they're mobilizing their community, they're trying everything they can to bring peace and stability back to their areas, to provide services, as Raja said. I think they are the beacons of hopes we have to support them. The leadership model which was imposed in Syria was wrong. It was wrong from day one to say there is an exile opposition that represents what's happening. It's those local leaders emerging from the civil society who are the two leaders. They are the ones who can get things happen. There's so many of them, I know it's more difficult to deal with them, it's easier to have somebody who can come to Washington and Paris and London, but they don't deliver. People who can deliver are inside Syria. We have to focus on them again. We have to assist them, to help them, to create the conditions around them that enable them to do their job. Every progress, every real progress I've seen in Syria when we looked at the peace initiative was led by those people. Sometimes they're traditional leadership. They're not just pure, typical civil society. They're tribal leaders or religious leaders. They're old-fashioned charities, but they are Syrians who are driven by the desire of bringing the best of those people to their country. And I really think we have to focus on them again to achieve sustainable peace on Syria because I don't think there will be sustainable peace without the involvement of civil society in Syria. Thank you. So if I say I have hope every day, I would be lying. We give up. Like we are a team of the essential one. It's 50 people. And we give up sometimes. I think what gives us hope that sticking together and working together and trying to help each other, basically. So maybe I caught one of my colleague on International Woman Day. He said, my mom, my sisters, my female friends didn't really change me, but women at CCSDS were able to convince me that women can do something. And I think this could help me a lot during my career. So two quick questions from the audience. And I think good ones. We've made a strong case that there's a need for an organic solution that civil society has to be at the heart of that. But the question from the audience is, can a strong civil society initiative emerge organically in the context of a very insecure environment? In other words, are the conditions there for really that kind of organic organizing to take place and begin to kind of form on a kind of a collective and national basis to a sufficient level that it could actually bring about a sustainable piece? This is why we're calling for integrated model. I'm saying, you know, lots of the civil society initiated piece processes actually fell apart because of regional interference or because we failed to help them. We failed to provide them with monitors or even humanitarian agencies who can, we've seen often, by the way, the involvement of UNHCR inside Syria was very helpful. It was an incentive to piece when they were there around. So we failed even to deliver that to them. So we should upscale the presence, international presence inside Syria to give more space to this civil society initiative. We should help them from the outside. And sometimes these, although we call them civil society, sometimes these initiatives will come from one person. Just one person, but he will be a leader in his community. He will be somebody who everybody will listen to and respect. And the moment the clock turns in the favor of peace, you will see people, you know, gathering around this person and hopefully civil society organization will be born. This is a very important question. So thanks for, I do think it needs time and trying to impose solution fast. It's very problematic. As I said from the beginning, if we don't really go with inclusive and consultative process, it will be hard. And it's better to do it from bottom up instead of like up down. And the main issue to understand actually, what are the nature of this different like initiative? And we know that some of them is depending on like personal contacts only. Some of them depends that people were in prison with Islamic people and they were able to like exchange prisoners because they were in prison before. And some of them just because they are women who are trying to advocate for peace building in their community. And just like to understand those different natures. And as I said, we know that there's no feedback loops and communication channel. We need time in order to build those and it should be built like depending on the security issue and trust issue. Of course, like in this kind of sort of circumstances, there's loss of trust between people and you need to have this confidence building in order to continue. So it won't take time. We need to be patient. But I think it's worth it. And maybe the other question and maybe the final question would be there is a view that this is a proxy war and that perhaps the path to peace may not be through the kind of initiatives we're talking about because the players that are involved in sort of sponsoring a proxy war and interfering in the peace process, even at the most grassroots level, don't have an interest in enabling a peace process to take place. And that therefore we have to resolve the interests among the parties that are playing out the proxy war before we can actually get to a peaceful solution. What's the view of within your community of that particular analytical framework? There is a proxy war element in this war but it's not just proxy war. There's civil war element in it but it's not just civil war. It's the combination of all of them. I think we should stop applying any traditional model on the Syrian conflict. It's a new model in its own. It's closer to what's known as new wars where the war reaches a stage where it becomes a mutual enterprise between all the warring party where they all benefit from the continuation of the war not the end of the war. Right now even if we end the proxy element there are internal dynamics that are able to drive this conflict like the war economy. The war economy in many areas of Syria is very much well established and capable of keeping this conflict running for a long while. And remember in Lebanon we've seen this as well. So we need to work both on the international level and on the Syrian level. To see a significant progress inside Syria we need international consensus. We've been saying this by the way these views were coming from Syria for two years right now. And they were always met where they were neglected and all what we've seen from the international community is an increased polarization like the forming of friends of Syria block for example. We just increased international polarization so we have one block against one block. The more polarization there is outside the more that translates into fragmentation inside Syria and makes us distances further away from a solution. So your question is basically do we want US and Russia to agree with each other about solution? Of course, please do. We know it's much harder especially after the Ukraine situation. But I really hope that there will be international consensus. It's hard, it's not coming very soon but in the same time I agree definitely with Reem that it's not only the international agreement which will solve the problem. We need to go. So the international agreement will solve the track one, the national agreement hopefully. But you have a lot to go still like you need to have the ceasefire. So if we are talking about Geneva communique so okay US and Russia they agreed with each other and they have hopefully the peace agreement. So you have the ceasefire, you have to resolve the besieged area, you have the transitional government body and all this needs a lot of work from like inside Syria more locally when you are talking about area like in Comishli for example, definitely the solution will be different from like when you are talking about like area and so basically you need the both element and it's never like waste of resources to be investing locally. So maybe just a couple of reflections as we wrap up. I thought one of the most profound comments of the morning was High Commissioner Gutierrez's comment that the international community has lost the ability to make peace. That's a rather chilling comment particularly when we're hearing from both of our speakers that this is a conflict that needs to be resolved on three levels and the international level is as important as the national and local level. And I think it reinforces the notion that there needs to be real engagement on the part of those of us who work in these policy arenas as well as the broad American public that I think I have to agree with Raja has actually either been confused or has distanced itself from this conflict for perhaps a variety of reasons that are probably too complex to discuss here this morning. I think the other issue that was coming through strongly to me in your comments was brought home to us actually last week. We hosted events last week for International Women's Day and Lema Gaboi was here, the Nobel Prize winner and she was making the rounds here in Washington talking about the peace process in Liberia but actually talking about the whole process of inclusiveness as a principle in trying to drive peace not only from the top down but the bottom up in her own experience of bringing large numbers of women to peace negotiations in Accra and actually forcing their way into the building or surrounding the building and forcing the negotiators to miss several meals until they got to some agreement was sort of symbolically I think a profound way of indicating that perhaps maybe we're not using all the tools at our disposal to get the negotiators to think seriously about the ways to peace. The point she had making was and sort of the phrase that kept bringing through the various comments you made was and the women came and the women came and her story is if you haven't followed it was the women came and actually in Liberian case forced the peace process to go forward. They persuaded men not to allow themselves to be conscripted and her comment was a gun does not fire itself it needs someone to fire it and thereby continue the conflict. So I think there's a lot of lessons we need to be learning from these previous conflicts about the role of civil society, the role of women, about inclusivity, about the need for solving these problems at multiple levels simultaneously and I think both of you for really kind of giving us some insight into the courageous work that your organizations are doing, the people within your organizations and many of the civil society leaders inside Syria who we don't see, we don't hear from who are really invisibly trying to I think carve that pathway to peace and I do hope we don't celebrate a fourth anniversary to the Syrian conflict. I much prefer to be celebrating a Nobel Peace Prize for both of you and as women waging peace and continue this tradition of women actually setting an example for the world and leading peace initiatives. So thank you all very much for coming and I hope you found it very productive this morning. Thanks so much. Thank you, that was wonderful, huh? Really, really good. We really, we need this desperate to do. Thanks.