 in a similar manner to the first two. I'm going to start with the question that I'm asking the different panelists to respond to in a minute or under, if possible. And it's the question, the question is should reconstruction, if we are talking about reconstruction, particularly in light of the events of the last few days, should we talking about reconstruction and should it proceed during, before, during, or after a post-conflict settlement in Syria? Minister Elwood, let me start with you. Well, firstly, can I say thank you very much indeed for being part of this panel and being also in front of such a bright audience, I see. I don't say that just because there are powerful lights in the room, but it's a real pleasure to be here. Thank you very much indeed. I think it's important to understand what we mean by construction because as a former soldier, there is the war fighting and then there's the peacekeeping and reconstruction actually covers quite a wide variety of activities, including the urgent humanitarian support, the stabilization and then the economic development and reconstruction that takes place after that. What I would say from the British perspective, indeed other allies as well, we're just hot off the conference that took place in Brussels, is that we are doing a huge amount of work to provide the humanitarian support for the people in Syria, but also for the refugees that have fled the country and are in places like Jordan, Turkey and indeed Lebanon and we pay tribute to those countries. And we're also doing work on stabilization as well. British government pays for the work of the white helmets that you'll be familiar with and indeed the free Syrian police. We're soon to see, I hope, the liberation of Raqqa where there'll be requirements for water to be provided, utilities to work, electricity to be put back in place, IEDs to remove, there will be stabilization activities that come. But the final part of that lineage, if you like, of work can only take place once there is a genuine political solution in place. The real reconstruction of economic development can only be based on the foundations of a solid political agreement as laid out in UN Security Council Resolution 2254. Thank you. Mr. Elwood, Dr. Rabdaoui, second. Thank you, Ligenghi, for the introduction and for this presentation. I'd like to start thanking Raqqa. Sorry, just as a word of clarification, Mr. Sawa, whom I forgot to introduce, has kindly agreed to translate to simultaneous translation for Dr. Hijab and Dr. Rabdaoui. I'd like to start with thanking Carnegie for organizing this important event. It goes straight forward to the major point. I want to say that the regime is the one, the party that puts on the table the issue of reconstruction for many reasons. When the regime was bombing Muaddamiyah and Da'arayah in Damascus countryside, at the very same time, it allocated 50 billion Syrian pounds to reconstruction. One of the reasons the regime is suggesting that is to convince its allies that they will have a big piece of the cake in the reconstruction. But the second very important reason is that the regime wants to reward the group of people who support him, wealthy people and wealthy business people, who support the regime. The regime wants to reward them and promise them with another piece of cake during the reconstruction in the future. To do so, the regime tried to convince and involve the international, the World Bank, and to do so, it prepared a study based on a survey made from the air when airplanes surveyed the situation in six areas in Syria. And depending on that survey, the regime prepared a study that it submitted to the World Bank. There must be preconditions for reconstruction and we will talk about this in the coming hour. Thank you, Toriad Shanta. Okay, well, thank you also for this opportunity to appear on this panel. This is a fascinating conversation to be part of, not one that chief economists are usually frimmy to. And so let me say, you know, the question of reconstruction before, during, or after, regardless of which of those three you choose, the key is to have a reconstruction plan ahead of time. And this has been our experience and let's go back to the Bretton Woods Conference in July of 1944. That was a whole one year before the end of World War II when most of the reconstruction program was not only designed, but it was also financed. So the financing was already built ahead of time. And that is, I think, the big challenge for us now and that is what we're trying to do. Now that said, I think if you have a plan, the choice of whether there's sufficient piece or whether it's appropriate to go in with implementation is, comes back to what minister Elwood was saying, because that's a geopolitical decision. That is not a decision for us economists to take and I think we should respect that. And then finally, let me say, though, that our experience has been in some conflict situations. There have been opportunities to not necessarily undertake reconstruction, but to undertake assistance that would prevent the situation from getting worse. And just let me give you the example of Yemen. Now, as the conflict is going on in Yemen, the World Bank has implemented two programs, one in health and one in livelihoods that are being administered through the United Nations. So as long as you have a, even if there's no government, if you have a partner who is a credible partner, can make sure that the money reaches the people for whom it was intended. And we can monitor it in a credible way. We can undertake some expenditures, even in a conflict situation. Thank you, Shanta. Dr. Riyadh. Thank you. Thank you, Maha. I'm very happy to be with you here. My perspective is that we shouldn't wait for reconstruction, but we can divide the reconstruction process into several stages. What the Syrians require now, more than anything else, is providing security and stopping the bombing, breaking the siege and entering assistance, stopping the arbitrary detention and deportation and demographic change. What the Syrians want is hope in the end of the tunnel and urgent steps that would return hope for them in life again. That's why I say reconstruction has to be done over stages. Some of these stages are more urgent, and they must be done now. If we could establish safe zones with no-fly zones, as the current U.S. administration is saying now, and which the former U.S. administration has refused, we can start reconstruction, the first stages of reconstruction in these safe havens. We need to provide the infrastructure in these safe havens, water drinking, education, healthcare. There must be an immediate intervention to return life to these areas, so that the Syrians lead their normal life and refugees return to their homeland. On the other hand, we have other projects for reconstruction which need to be delayed because reconstruction cannot be a reward for those who destroyed the country. And a reward for those who supported this regime and fought with this regime against the Syrian people. The regime has done a great number of deals with Russian companies. And the Russians genuinely believe that reconstruction in Syria will be an leverage for their economic assistance. I don't believe that the U.S. or the Gulf States will participate in reconstruction in Syria with the presence of this regime. And they should not do that. They must not start reconstruction in Syria with the presence of this regime. Reconstruction has to be linked together with a serious real political transition. Thank you. Thank you, Dr. Riyadh. Mr. Elwood, I'm going to also depart a bit from my own script, but Mr. Elwood, Dr. Riyadh brought up the issue of safe zones. How safe are safe zones and how feasible is it to implement safe zones if we are to go with at least some of what he's proposed? This is a question or an idea that's been mooted many times. And I visited the Zatari camp. I don't know if any of you have been there. It's an enormous refugee camp in the north of Jordan. When I visited that a couple of years ago, the question I posed to myself and did the team that I was with is why can we not just have this a little bit further, 20 kilometers further inside Syria itself? Because then often with UN camps, you come back 10 years later and it's actually turned into an actual town and people often stayed there because they're scared to go back. But it's fraught with so many questions because were you to entertain doing this? And this is just in the south in the desert area, which doesn't belong to anybody. So there's no ownership of the land. So perhaps from a feasibility perspective, that makes it easier. But how do you get water there because it is isolated? How do you get jobs there because it is secluded from any connections to any other towns and so forth? And how do you actually secure it? Who's going to be the police? Who's going to make sure that if the Assad regime are not supportive of the concept of safe zones, how can you defend it from the sky? Now, if you can answer all those questions, then you're moving into the territory of saying that this is a possibility. And with that, you then, conceivably, then have a plan. You try and do any of this in the north of Syria. And of course, the land there becomes far more strategic as to who actually owns it in the longer term, what's going to actually happen there, and how it will actually be used. So it is fraught with a number of challenges. But it is important, I think, where we are on the length of time that this country has suffered, that we do look at new options. And this is something that in a wider variety of schemes, we do need to consider how best we can actually help the Syrian people. But as I say, the concept of safe zones, of defending them, of feeding the people there, is fraught with huge danger. And that's why, to date, it's been ruled out. Thank you. I will come back to this issue, and particularly the link that was made between safe zones and reconstruction, and sort of his call on not to embark on any kind of reconstruction, so long as the regime is in place. We'll come back to this in a second. If I can turn to what I see it, if we can talk a little bit about the underlying framework that needs to be in place for us to even begin thinking about reconstruction. And especially since we know that when we talk about, it's not about bricks and mortars, it's about how do you stitch back a country together? How do you ensure inclusion of a wide variety of people, individuals, groups, and so on and so forth? We don't have barriers in order to start planning for reconstruction. But the first step, the major first step is to start or to reach a political settlement that satisfies the Syrian population. And building a new system, a new regime, and not reconstructing or rehabilitating the current regime. I will give you some examples of what should be done before starting reconstruction. We cannot start the reconstruction process without addressing the problem of the central state. We cannot and should not concentrate the development in the center and neglect the parameters of the country. I am from Derzour and I'm speaking from experience. I was chair of the Planning Commission in Syria for years. And I can assure you that the developments in Syria was not balanced at all and was not fair. And I always repeated that these two areas, Deratiya and Shaddadi, one of them is very prosperous and wealthy and the other is very poor. They cannot be in the same country. So reconstruction has to be balanced and distributed across the nation. Otherwise, if we do not do so, we will start from the zero point again and there will be reasons for the revolution. It's not important to build a school. It's important to build a school with a different education system and different kind of teachers. We cannot build a hospital without having a good medics cadre in it. In the province of Derzour, there are some 50 medical centers but they are empty. They are all empty. Some of them even do not have doors and windows. That's why these are the major steps and preconditions before reconstruction. Among the preconditions is to have a consensus on the future service system and to end up with the comedy which we have today. The comedy that's the first that is called the social market economy. And the Syrians play on the words and they call it the social bad market. It means either market or it means evil or bad. This social market economy has created a plague of corruption and a series of bad things that cannot be repaired. In addition to what we can add on governance and transparency and I will stop here. Maybe we can talk on later. We are speaking about reconstruction not as bricks and mortar but a political decision at the end of the day. We are talking about a vision for Syria that goes beyond the mechanisms of reconstruction. Perhaps you can elaborate a little bit when we talk about inclusive economy. What are the steps that need to be in place? What vision do you think needs to be in place for reconstruction? And what are the challenges on the ground that need to be taken into account? First of all I would like to support my colleague in the World Bank about what he said about the necessity of planning, of previous planning. And I think there have been steps, measures that have been made in this direction. Planning for reconstruction. One of these measures is specializing a fund in the German institution of GIZ with German Emirati support. And there was contribution from many other countries in this fund. According to my knowledge there has been an amount of money of 100 million euros has been collected to put plans for reconstruction in Syria. From my perspective it is very important to start reconstruction immediately after we finish from the political transition and ceasefire. Because we are in desperate need to involve the youth and find jobs for them and involve them in reconstruction. But if we wait until after the political transition happens, if we wait until then and we start putting plans for reconstruction that will take ages. This will encourage the youth to stay within the armed group system. Because they need jobs, they need salaries to raise their children. While if reconstruction starts immediately, these youth will find better jobs and they will support their families and they will look after their education and their family health care etc. Yes, that's why it's essential that we start the planning now and we start accomplishing the reconstruction after the transition. Anton, let me turn to you. Given what you've heard and there is consensus around the need to plan, however implementation begins at a later stage, particularly since this is not a technical issue. What mechanisms do you think are available to ensure that the dividends of reconstruction, particularly in a country like Syria where the situation is incredibly complex, there's considerable fragmentation. The regime has managed to find different ways to even control at this point through legislation through various frameworks to maintain its control over different processes, specifically even civil society activities in areas under its own Germany. So what mechanisms would be available to ensure that the dividends of reconstruction are not captured by the few, especially those that made their money during the war and off the conflict. At the same time, what mechanisms should be created to make sure through which one can channel humanitarian and reconstruction funds in a way that really makes sure that their benefits are within the spread clause. Thank you. Those are excellent questions and I am glad that there's a consensus emerging here. But I might break that consensus a bit because I think the first principle we have to be careful about is that if you do what we traditionally do in a post-conflict situation, which is come in with lots of money and rebuild infrastructure from the central government. That's almost precisely what you don't want in Syria because that is what is likely to give the rents to the oligarchs who have been capturing them all along. But there's a couple of other reasons why that may not be the right way to start. As we know, half the population in Syria is displaced, either externally or internally. So if you rebuild the infrastructure that was destroyed, it may not be the places that these people want to necessarily locate it. So we need to first allow people the choice of where they want to reside before we start building the infrastructure. Again, this is part of a rational reconstruction program where you listen to the people rather than have some central government agency or even the World Bank dictate where things should be built. And I think there are ways to do that, which is one is actually provide people with money rather than building the infrastructure. You provide them with money, let them move where they want, and then those communities can build the infrastructure depending on where they locate. So it's a very different way of looking at rebuilding, privileging the voice of the people. But there's a second part of that, which gets to what Minister Elwood was also alluding to, which is the refugees. I mean, we already have programs with the UK government as well, where we're helping to set up special enterprise zones for refugees and host communities in Jordan to work in Northern Jordan near the Zatari camp. Now, those could become the incubators of the post conflict private economy. These are businesses and many of them are Syrian businesses that are now in Jordan but could become the beginnings of the post conflict economy in Syria. So the second principle I would say is you want to try to emphasize the competitive private sector. And I emphasize the word competitive because it's not reproducing the old oligarchs and the oligopolies that dominated pre-conflict Syria, but trying to give some of these small and medium enterprises a chance to re-enter the economy. And as I said, this is a mistake. I mean, this is something we overlook in lots of places. I would say that in Afghanistan that was probably the biggest mistake that was made in the reconstruction program was not to enable the small and medium enterprise sector to grow and now they're facing the consequences. And then thirdly, as people said before, what Syria really needs is not infrastructure but inclusive institutions. This is what was missing in the past. And so when we're rebuilding Syria, what you're really talking about is rebuilding institutions that are genuinely inclusive. And I think this idea of giving resources to the public is one way of doing it, but there are other ways, including strengthening the education system. I mean, one of the problems with the education system in Syria was that it was very much top-down. It was a centralized, driven education system. But there are ways to design an education system where the students and the parents actually have a voice in how things are taught and how things are run. And then finally, we can't forget that Syria is an oil producer. It doesn't produce very much now, but at one point it was something like 35% to 40% of government revenues that's coming from oil. Now, this has one, maybe when I said Syria, she thought it was Syria. It's happened before. But being an oil producer actually is a way, and this again, the experience has been around the world, that in post-conflict situations oil producers can, if they can restart the oil economy, can generate resources for reconstruction quite rapidly. They actually recover faster than non-oil producers. But on the other hand, and this is where it becomes difficult, the problem with oil resources in the past has been that it all accrued to the government. The oil revenues accrued to the government, and there was very little accountability in how the government actually distributed it. Now, I think we have to be extremely careful in the post-conflict economy about making sure there is some accountability for oil revenues. And there again, I come back to some of these proposals, like the ones for universal basic income, where the idea is that the government transfers oil resources directly to the public. And then, if it needs money for construction or infrastructure, you tax them. So that way, you create some kind of accountability. And let me add that this might be even more critical in a Syrian situation, because as we know, there are different groups, different factions in the country. So there may have to be some kind of autonomy given to certain parts of the country, some kind of decentralization. Now, the biggest problem with decentralization is how the oil revenues are shared among the different states. And in that case, if there's some way we can circumvent that, because otherwise that could just lead to another civil war, you go back and try to say, well, let's give the oil revenues out on a per capita basis and then let people move to whichever communities they want and thereby actually hold the country together better than we would if we were trying to centralize the resources. Thank you, Shanta Akshay. I'm glad you brought up the issue of refugee return and the return of those displaced. We're currently doing a project in Beirut that's actually working with refugees to try and understand what the triggers of return would be. And one of the striking things is that overwhelmingly people do want to go back to the areas they came from. All movements of people internally displaced indicate that they don't get displaced too far, those that remain within Syria. They remain more or less within the same governance and they want to go back to their homes. So I think this is something to keep in mind when we're actually looking at the mechanics of reconstruction and what that might imply for the refugee return. But anyway, I will be coming back to this issue at the end. Minister Elwood, if I can just come back to you as well and ask a little bit about, I mean, we're talking about reconstruction. We just had the Brussels conference. We're talking about at least for planning for reconstruction. There are US and international sanctions against Syria. So at what point should we begin thinking about lifting, easing, changing these sanctions? At what point do we start having that kind of a conversation as well and how does it hook up with reconstruction? And if I can just tag on another question to this issue in particular as well is what role do you see again coming back to the Brussels conference that just ended? What role do you see for multilateral and donor agencies? But I think for civil society organizations, I mean, we heard them very clearly, or at least we had, we heard one very vocal and powerful representative of civil society in the panel before us. What role do you see for them in the reconstruction process? There's important points and I think these are questions that will come to the fore as certainly as RACCO, I hope, is liberated. It's important to understand how sanctions are working and we can crudely put them into two categories. There are those sanctions which are trying to affect the regime's ability to cause harm. So sanctions against jet fuel, for example. Then there are other sanctions which are towards individuals that are causing harm themselves. So Assad, members of his regime, specific people who we know we want to hold to account in the longer term for the reasons that we all know. What we don't want to see is a point where we see advancement in construction which is then hindered because of sanctions that are in place. But the conference that took place in Brussels and the conference that took place in London in accumulating 11 billion in London and then 6 billion last week is actually going towards humanitarian aid and stabilization. There's two other areas and then the work of NGOs and others, the actual sanctions not being lifted yet should not prohibit them from doing work and doing a lot of homework as well, dare I say, as to what needs to actually be done towards developing civil society. But I go back to the point that we can only really make dividends in this entire area once we understand what the long term genuine political solution is. What will be the makeup of the country? And indeed if it is, and there's talk it's for the Syrian people to decide, if they go down the federated model, what are the central people and centrifugal forces that then allow the decisions to be made, let's say on a more local basis, and those that are made actually at the center as well. And these are big questions and obviously this is what prompted the free, the Syrian people to uprise against Assad in the first place. The moderate soon is that actually simply wanted something else wanted to form other parties other than been forced to join the bath party, or indeed the only other alternative then, as we see now is to go and join something more extreme, which we also don't want to see. Thank you. This year, let me just turn to the last question to you and Dr. Hijab. If we can talk a little bit, I mean we've heard a lot about what are the mechanisms in place. Mr. Elwood was just talking about sanctions and the lifting of sanctions. And also, what are all of what are what is the implication of all of these things on the question of refugee and IDP return. And more particularly what needs to be done to make sure that the population transfers that have happened over the past five to six years as part of local ceasefires, the conciliations, sieges do not remain in place and that there is a potential for reversing some of these issues. First of all, I would like to say that I am in full agreement with our colleague from the World Bank for a couple of points, good points that he mentioned. But to be more precise regarding the refugees and internally displaced people, we cannot start reconstruction in Syria without the return of the refugees. Particularly if we know that it's not only quantity, but the quality of these people, we would see how important and big the Syrian loss was. I'll give you an example about the quality of the people who left the country. In 2015 between March and June, 83% of the Syrians who entered Greece in those three months were 83 of them were either graduate or undergraduate. What who remained in Syria then? Another fact I must underscore here that the development, the growth, the revenues of the growth would only go to the pockets of certain group of people and figures can prove this. In 2010, the expenditure of the households in the poorest four provinces in Syria was between 6% and 10%. Which tells us that the lifestyle of these people in those four provinces was very, very low. We have to take this in consideration. If I can turn to you with the same question that perhaps focus also on the issue of the population transfers that have happened. We don't have a good sense of how extensive they are, but they've been, this issue has been talking over and over again, particularly as part of local ceasefires and lifting of sieges. If I'm in Arabic, okay. This is the next translation. This is the last thing that has happened in the last four days. Thank you. Thank you. One of the worst war crimes which the regime of Bashar al-Assad has committed is the forced deportation and forced demographic change. Iran primarily works in this direction with the assistance of Russia. Many areas, the entire population of certain cities were forced to leave those homes, including Darya and a big part of Muadamiya. And the west countryside of Damascus in many areas in that part. But even some quarters within the city of Damascus and of course the city of Homs and the province of Homs. In the heart of the city of Homs, there are complete neighborhoods which the people had to flee and the regime will not allow them to return. And to add to the latest deportation which happened in Alwar neighborhood in Homs. Unfortunately, in many of these areas, reconciliations happened under the patronage of the United Nations. And the United Nations gave guarantees to the people in those areas that the regime will not deport them. But then the United Nations gave them up when the regime started deporting them by force. This will be one of our major challenges in the future that will face us in Syria. We cannot start reconstruction and we cannot start reconstruction and the return of the refugees. If the Syrian people do not feel a real improvement in their lifestyles and security within the political process. So there are three measures that need to take place at the beginning. First, all the non-Syrian sectarian militias need to leave the Syrian territories. The second point is adopting and implementing comprehensive programs to implement reconciliation. The national reconciliation and the fatal dialogue, which aims to heal the nation from the prospects of sectarianism and hatred and discrimination and extremism which the regime has strengthened. And third, we need to go ahead in the transitional justice portfolio. It is a very complex issue but it is very very important to settle in Syria and to encourage the refugees to return and to reconstruct the country. It is very important because we want to avoid cases of revenge and counter-violence. What has happened in the past years is awful. It is horrible. 80% of the Syrian people are below poverty line. The Syrian population is outside the country. Unemployment according to the current statistics is 58%. 51% of the Syrian children are out of the education system. That's why it's very very complicated. The refugees return might not be soon. It might take long time. The more improvements on the ground, the more chances we have for refugees to return. It will be in the areas which witnessed deportation, demographic changes. As you may know, in many areas the regime has bound and purpose the property register. Now many Syrians will find themselves in a big trouble. Many, there are people even here in this room who left their country. Syria and they have property in Syria. They return to Syria, they might find the Faxani or Avagani or Iraqi or Lebanese. How can these people prove that this property is theirs after the property registry has been burned? Sadly, these are very complicated. And it needs time. We're going to open it up for questions. Thank you for a great discussion. I'm Perry Kamak here at Carnegie. At least as I think of the reconstruction challenge, it strikes me that the biggest problem is one of kind of simple arithmetic. Where do the numbers come from? I mean, there's the scope of the damage that's been estimated into the hundreds of billions. I mean, I don't know if those numbers are credible or not, but incredibly expensive. Here in Washington are kind of stated economic policy is one of economic nationalism. Of course, European countries have been very generous, but there's so much focus on humanitarian assistance. I think that leaves not so much for the reconstruction. And last but not least, of course, it's not just Syria we're talking about. There's Mosul in Iraq, the conflict in Libya, and it could well be that Yemen ends up meeting being the most devastated of all these countries. So I guess my question is if we're being kind of creative enough in thinking about the economic architecture needed for something of this magnitude, if it's not time to kind of contemplate something like an Arab Bank for reconstruction development like we had in Europe in the early 90s after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Thank you. I mean, I'm probably not best place to give you the details as to an answer, Matt Kirsten, other than in generality to agree with you that it will be a huge challenge, but never underestimate the will and determination of good nations to step forward to support. But many nations at the moment are, I think, will be waiting until they see a definite political settlement and see progress being made. And then there'll be, as we've seen, a combination of governmental support and then the private sector as well. But the architecture is absolutely quite critical. Where I would say is that when you do look at examples in the past, indeed in Iraq as well, you look at Tikrit now, it's just reopened its university as one indicator as how they are rejuvenating themselves and then also taking advantage of the mineral wealth that they have in that country too. But the human nature is to endeavor, it is to survive, and we shouldn't ever underestimate that. But yes, I think it's for the economists and so forth to provide the analysis, the detail, and those architectural proposals that we will definitely need to visit. I hope sooner than later. Shanta, you wanted to... I mean, just to supplement that, I fully agree there, but also we should not let the magnitude of the numbers paralyze us. It's not the case that unless you get $200 billion on the table, you can't start reconstruction. In fact, sometimes that's been part of the problem is that as we found in Iraq after 2003, there was almost too much money running around and that was not actually being used in a prudent way. So it's much more, let's get some money to get started and then what's really needed is this institutional strengthening that everybody has been talking about. Thank you. Mohammad Samman again, Syria Advice Center based in Washington, D.C. As a Syrian, it breaks my heart to hear the facts that Dr. Hijab just mentioned about those horrendous facts about what's going on in Syria. Particularly the 51% of my country's kids who are not in refugees, they're not going to education, proper education. That's the responsibility of the international community. This is really serious, gentlemen, ladies and gentlemen. We have a potential terrorist there in that segment of the population. My question to you, Dr. Hijab. You've mentioned the initiative by Germany and United Arab Emirates about the trust fund. One of the people who was involved in that project is involved in specific and documented corruption. Are we going to make sure that those who are in charge of rebuilding Syria are actually first, number one, they have the integrity. Number two, they have the competence to handle this. My question to you, Dr. Taysir, you are a well-known expert and we highly appreciate your efforts in Syria and outside Syria. You are very familiar with the development plans in the GCC countries. Do you see us benefiting from their experience, from their plans, like Qatar National Vision, Dubai National Vision, Saudi 2030, all of that? Do you see us benefiting from this and to accelerate our rebuilding projects in Syria in the development future? Thank you. Thank you very much, Dr. Mohamed. In fact, I'm not aware of what progress or issues have happened within GIZ in the past three years. But I remember towards the end of 2012, I had a meeting with the Executive Director of this organization. And he told me that some countries have established a fund especially to put plans for reconstruction. But I'm not aware of how much progress they have achieved. As you know, these are grants and support from other countries. We don't have power over them. But as you said, the situation in Syria is very painful. The figures that have been discussed currently about what Syria needs for reconstruction are over. The figure exceeds $270 billion. Syria is not Iraq and is not Libya. The Syrian general budget for 2011 was $17 billion only. And now it's only $3 billion. So if the cost of reconstruction now is $270 billion, we don't know by the end of the crisis, we don't know the figure how big it will be. So the challenge will there be anybody, whether the states, Europe or the Gulf, who is willing to pay such a big figure? We have a completely destroyed economy. The oil sector, the industry sector, the agriculture, all other economic sectors and infrastructure. All has been destroyed by Bashar and his allies. That's why I frankly say knowingly as a former official, we are facing a huge tragedy. That's why I say when there is a real political transition. We need individuals who are efficient and people with integrity. We need people with experience and wide network. And capable of serving reconstruction in Syria. We are very afraid to repeat the Iraqi tragedy in reconstruction. Hundreds of billions of dollars were spent on paper but nothing, the Iraqi citizens did not see anything on the ground. I'm here not talking about the position and regime. We need patriotic, national patriotic, who care about their homeland. For example, regardless what people might think of Hariri in Lebanon. We in Syria need people who lead the political transition and do to the Syrian nation what Hariri did to the Lebanese. Without reconstruction, without development, without the wheel of the economy running round and round, Syria cannot be back to life again. Thank you, Dr. Mohamed. Thank you very much for your question, Dr. Mohamed. In fact, every country has a unique experience and we cannot copy and paste experience from other nations. Thank you very much for your question, Dr. Mohamed. In fact, every country has a unique experience and we cannot copy and paste experience from other nations. Even if we want to do so, even if we want to benefit from the experience of our nations. Sometimes we make the opposite. Sometimes we make mistakes and we reach the opposite results. Bashar al-Assad used to say that we will follow the Chinese experience. He told us about this several times. The Chinese experience, which we said we start with the economic reform and then follow it up with the political reform. But what happened in Syria was the quite opposite. Because there was no real market economy and competition and productive economic sector in agriculture and industry. What we had in Syria was two virtual corporations that were dominated by... And this group of people are collaborating closely with security officers. That's why all investments were in hotels and restaurants but not in real productive sector. And the result was more poverty and more inequality. If the revolution succeeds, what's important is the important thing is to get to agreement all of us to an economic and political and social regime and to agree on a vision and mission etc. This is how we will plan for our future Syria. Just to draw everybody's attention, we have about 15 minutes left. I'd like to get as many questions in as possible. So if I could ask both the audience and the speakers to try and stick to questions and then quick responses. Farah. We as women can have extra minutes. Thank you, Maha. Farah Hatasi with the High Negotiation Committee. I would like to say I am not that pessimistic as my colleagues here talking about rebuilding Syria and the future of Syria. I truly believe that Syrians will rise from the ashes. They are resilient. They are hard-working fighters. We already started to hear successful, wonderful stories of refugees in Sweden, in Germany, all over the world. There are a lot of challenges. Yes, we agree. However, you all visited refugee camps. You've been to Al-Za'atar. Al-Za'atar is now a mini-city. You already, when you enter the gates, you will see a city in place. You will see grocery. You will see tailors. You will see pharmacies. You will see electric shops. The Syrian people are hard-working. They are a labor, a very natural, hard-working labor. I worked with the private sector with the United Arab Emirates. My question to the economists. I worked with the United Arab Emirates and Germany on the reconstruction and rebuilding, and we were trying to put a Marshall Plan for Syria. I was responsible for the private sector basket because, yes, we do believe 20 million experts outside Syria are the dynamo behind rebuilding and coming back with their expertise. They are the technocrats. They are the know-how that they can rebuild Syria. However, at that time, three years ago, when we started knocking the doors of the World Bank and the IMF and all other international organizations, there was no interest whatsoever to hear about reconstruction for Syria. So my question to you, what's going on right now? Why out of the sudden there is an interest in the reconstruction of Syria? I myself was invited to three conferences right now for reconstructing Syria. So do we feel that there is a change coming, a political change coming, a political solution coming? There is an international will somehow to move forward with really finding a solution to the Syrian conflict. Thank you. Thank you. Let me take a couple of questions, if I may. First of all, Qadmani, again, it's also for you, Shanta. It is about the reconstruction, the vision you presented suggests there are multiple actors who need to contribute or to be the recipients of the aid of the financial support or the funds. That has very detailed implications as political arrangements on the ground, specifically when you say decentralization, autonomous regions would be recipients of some of these funds. Now, that for me suggests that we need to have, and I don't know if this exists with the World Bank, mechanisms for consultation. My question is, are you establishing this consultative process with those multiple actors, local councils, but also business community, government of course, but I completely agree with you. A government will be overwhelmed at the center with so much to do that it will not have the capacity at least for a while to manage those funds. So are there those structures that mediate the relationship and where we can say that reconstruction is happening on the basis of what Syrians would like to see happen? There are civil society organizations, there are structures out there, governmental at the moment, non-governmental a lot in the non-government held areas. I think all of this suggests that we need those structures that mediate the relationship and the reconstruction process. So I haven't heard any of that so far. All I know is about people doing some plans out there without much consultation and that is what I hear. I think we are begging for enough consultation, enough mistakes have been made in other countries and we would like to avoid those. Thank you. Thank you very much. Shanta, do you want to take the two questions? Okay, I'll take those two very quickly. First on, I'm sorry that you didn't get a warm response from the World Bank when you came three, four years ago. That was before I joined the MENA region. You now have an open invitation. There is no question that it did take a while for us to realize that we need to start the planning now. This is the point that traditionally in other conflict situations, there are so many other things to be done, they wait till the war is over and then start the planning. And we took a decision explicitly three years ago that that was not going to be the case in this context or in Yemen or in Libya. So there has been a change in the thinking there. Now Basma's question is a very good one. Let me just clarify one thing. When I was talking about decentralization, I was not necessarily implying that donor funds go towards the different autonomous or different regions. What I said was that I think there has to be some arrangement for giving local autonomy to different groups and the critical question there is not the donor funds, it's the oil revenues. The oil revenues by definition are collected in one area, but they are the national property and then the question is how you arrange it. Now that said, I fully agree and this is something we are insisting on is that any reconstruction program has to be based on widespread consultation. This is actually explicit in our work program working through civil society and subnational entities that are village councils and things like that that are actually functioning right now. And you're absolutely right. This was one of the biggest mistakes in Iraq in 2003. I mean the Iraq reconstruction program was very much driven by the donor community with very little consultation with any Iraqis and we just cannot make that mistake. This just will not happen. Thank you Shanta. I mean it's possible just to get everybody on board. Philip Walker with the AJAX project which is actually FCO funded, so thank you. The question is actually for Shanta, the sort of following up on the previous one. Do you think that the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund model might be a suitable one for Syria down the road when political conditions might be there and have any steps been taken to get ready for that day? Thanks. Shanta, we're going to take another question. Rubam Hassan, my question is for Dr. Hijab. It's great to see that the Mestura's, yes I just started, it's great to see that the Mestura's office and a lot of internationals are putting really big effort on inclusion of Syrian civil society whether it's at the sideline of political negotiations or at the sideline of conferences like Brussels and others but how can we find modalities as Syrians within one another now that it's the sixth year going into the seventh to find, to formalize these processes between us as Syrians, between the Syrians of the society and the Syrian opposition leaders and representatives not only through the ACU but also in other ways where we can really be at the center of the table when there's planning or when there is any new thinking towards reconstruction or other. I'm saying that it's great to see that the Mestura's office and the internationalists in general are creating a space for the Syrian civil society to not be in the middle but in the political negotiations and so on but how can we think together as Syrians as it's the sixth year, how can we find a official seat and a role for the Syrian civil society to be in a conversation with the opposition representatives in a better way and not only to be present on the sides but to be on the table in a conversation Syria, Syria before it's Syria. Since we only have five minutes left, I'm going to take the last set of questions there are three here and that's it and then we give final remarks to our colleagues. There's one all the way in the back please and then two here but I would again urge you to please make them questions not statements and keep it short. How can you call the Kurds in the future in Syria? Yes, yes. And the Christians and other minorities. And now we're talking about the Syrian civil society. But Syria is the right system for some of its victims, in addition to some countries like Hezbollah and Iran. He's asking about the what doctor? He's asking about what Dr. Hijab see, what his position is on the Kurds, but also his position, he's a leader of Turkey. I'm going to keep it as simple as that. We have two more questions. Good translation. So gentlemen, there he is, please. Hello, thank you. And I think there was one here. I have a question for Dr. Hijab. How... Introduce yourself, please. Yes, my name is K. Spoushar and I'm with the National Dalmatian Democracy. My question is, how realistic is it that you think that refugees who have left to other countries in Europe, the United States, or the Gulf countries, how realistic is it that you see them to come back to Syria, even if reconstruction efforts have started, if they've found better lives there, and there has been a long brain drain going on in Syria, especially post-revolution. Thank you. Thank you. Our final question for today, the gentleman here. Very boring, man, again. My question is, basically, the discussion in this panel revolves around the idea that we're speaking about the traditional period, Assad is nowhere in the picture. But my question is, what if, hypothetically, Assad stays in power for however many years, what is going to be the response to Russia and Tehran? Is it going to be that you install this guy and you own this mess now and you deal with the economic and the troubles of Syria, or how is the international community and the World Bank, how are they going to react to this? Thank you. Shanta, let's start with you, since there were some questions. Yes. No, there was one question about the Afghanistan Reconstruction Trust Fund, whether that would be a model for Syria. And sure, that is a good model, and I think we can work on something like that essentially, the same elements of that are being discussed as we speak. But I do want to caution one thing, which is the ARTF essentially became a very public sector-oriented fund. And that was what I was saying earlier. I don't want to get into that mistake again. I think we have to privilege the private sector in Syria, particularly because of the entrepreneurial spirit of all the Syrians, including the ones who might be returning, and really encourage that. So I don't want to go too far down the ARTF road. Then, well, I think on the Assad question, I'll have to repeat what I said earlier, which is that's a geopolitical decision. We have nothing to say. Our shareholders, of whom the UK is one, will have to make that call. On that call, I'll move to Minister Elwood. We all know that Russia and Iran have been propping up Assad, and we've not touched on the despicable and barbaric behavior that we've seen, which all points to Assad using chemical weapons. Again, the biggest atrocity that we've seen take place since the attack in 2013 on Isenguta. I simply would say that international inaction in 2013 has had consequences. And we need to recognize that. From a British perspective, and indeed with our allies, we're just understanding the details of what happened, and we will move forward from there as the best way of putting it. But I make it very, very clear that we don't believe Assad has a part to play in the long term. And the fact that you have a president that chooses to bomb his own people to use chemical weapons, to use barrel bombs, if all the people of Syria who are in the refugee camps, and indeed the country as well, were given a free and fair say as to who they would want their leader to be, then in any future election, I do not believe Assad would have a chance of winning. And I think he now knows that. Thank you. Dr. Faisir, if you have some last, maybe a few words before we go. I think we have a clear vision of the coming period of reconstruction, what comes before and what comes after. And as we most of us agreed now, the first step needs to be the political transition. The second step will be the agreement on the economy, what kind of economy and what kind of administration, what kind of political system we need for the future. The other steps will be easier and will come consequently. Dr. Marwan, I believe that to address the question of the lady, I would like to ask you a few questions. First of all, I would like to talk about the issue of the revolution, about the system of the civil society. I would like to talk about the civil society, it has a very big role, now and in the Syrian future. I believe that to address the question of the lady, I believe that the Syrian civil society has a great role in Syria, whether now or in the future Syria. That's why we have expressed our keen interest in the HNC in the civil society organizations. We have communicated with the civil society organizations and we are keen to start a partnership with them. They are an essential part of the solution. There are some 1700 NGOs. I met with a lot of the representatives of the civil society and asked them if they can find a way or another to organize themselves. There are many civil society organizations that are mere names on people. But for us in the HNC, we have switched our hands and we welcome to have a partnership with the civil society. To materialize this, the day before yesterday, I made a statement calling for all spectrum of the Syrian opposition to get together in one place. Under the news we heard about the tragedy. Now the Syrian revolution is passing by a very important juncture. It's important we have a big meeting for all the opposition groups and the military groups and the civil society organizations and all the patriotic figures and representatives for all the Syrian people communities and strata. To discuss all issues related to the revolution and to reevaluate the political process and the situation of the revolution and resources and discuss our options in the future. The other question, what options do we have for the return of refugees after they might have settled in other countries? I want you to be confident that many of these refugees will return to Syria. I meet with Syrian refugees in many countries that I visit. Germany, France, Belgium, Denmark, any other place. All of them ask us one question. When will we get back to Syria? All Syrians want to return. I am the first among them. I don't want to go back to Syria to occupy a political position but I want to go back home. But the return is governed by a group of conditions. Some Syrian colleagues in Germany for example who told me I can erect a tent in the place of my home and live in that tent but importantly to return to Syria. Sir, about your questions about the minorities and the Kurds. Kurds are an essential part of the Syrian nation and we have every respect to the Kurdish community. The Kurds have suffered a lot in Syria and they paid high prices. I do not talk about political parties, Kurdish political parties. I am talking about the Kurdish nation which is the most important part of the Syrian nation. I do not talk about political parties, Kurdish political parties. I am talking about the Kurdish nation within the Syrian society. Syria is a mosaic picture. If we take off any part of that mosaic there will be a deficiency in the picture. And our vision when we set our vision for future Syria we said that we want Syria for all Syrians without marginalizing any group state of law and justice and equality for all Syrians. We are all the sons and daughters of this homeland no one has more rights than the other. This is our vision. Of course I agree with you that there are dark forces in Syria if I go to Syria they will kill me. But the party that destroyed Syria is this criminal regime the regime who used the chemical weapons and costs and bombed cities with hundreds of thousands of explosive barrels and used scud missiles and airplanes I want to share with you one thing when the revolutionaries entered the city of Aleppo the first time Bashar al-Assad used the airplanes I was in the office then and I met with him in his office in Damascus and I told him what's next we haven't spared any weapon we used all kinds of weapons there has to be a solution do you know what he answered he told me we have a big stock of scud missiles some of which are 40 years old and we need to use them so if we hit some of these areas with a couple of scuds the revolution will die off this is the criminal who destroyed the country I totally agree with you that there are other criminals terrorists and extremist criminals but let's ask ourselves how many did ISIS and Al Qaeda killed together 10,000, 20,000 Bashar al-Assad killed hundreds of thousands there are hundreds of thousands of detainees and prisoners the latest report by Amnesty International 13,000 prisoners were killed only in one prison you all remember Caesar's 11,000 people were killed in only two branches of detention centers and security agencies and we should know that the terrorist groups do not have airplanes they do not have explosive barrels who destroyed Syria is Bashar al-Assad and I would like to answer one question if you allow me to conclude my discourse in front of all the scenes that we see is there a hope to reconstruct the country and find a political solution I say yes there are three steps that need to be done in order to achieve a real political transition and start a new Syria the first step is to isolate the foreign influences in the inside of Syria and this requires the assistance of the brotherly and friendly countries the first step to solve the Syrian complex starts with confronting the Persian-Iranian expansion project and confront the Iranian aggressive attitude in Syria and its continuous attempt to incite sectarianism and society tension and the second access that we need to confront is the continuous attempt of Moscow to establish security military access that goes from Tehran to Beirut through Damascus and Baghdad through establishing a series of air bases and seaport bases and promote its fatal weapons through killing the Syrian people we must confront the non-Syrian groups that come from outside the country whether it was Daesh or Qaeda or any other sectarian group but confronting terrorism we should understand cannot be done only through confronting the military machine it has to be done on a comprehensive level an intellectual level and societal level the second major issue that needs to be addressed is the internal scene in Syria is what's happening in Syria, a civil war definitely not and the evidence is your presence here and those who live inside Syria what's happening in Syria is not a civil war when we devote the principles of citizenship and preserve the unity of our society and our social fabric and enhance the principles of the values of citizenship and justice and rule of law and implement transitional justice we will see a different society in Syria we want Syria for all the Syrians without any discrimination or marginalization we want a bigger active role for women we want women to be in all levels of decision making and in the high level of negotiations women are represented in different... no, not Qaeda, no in the decision making, 30% we in the high negotiation commission agreed that the presence of the women in all the decision making levels in Syria cannot be less than 30% some say this is too much but what the Syrian women have contributed is great and the third issue I want to address is something that has been missing since the beginning of the Syrian Revolution that's to enhance the implementation of the international law if we implement strongly the international law Assad wouldn't have used the chemical water or the toxic gas he wouldn't have gone that far in violating the international law that's why I say when the international will is there the strong international will to push the transition there will be a solution in Syria we've heard during the past two days a lot of talk from the U.S. administration and from many other officials from all over the world after the awful crime that Bashar Assad committed in Khan Sheikhun what we are waiting now is actions is leads and not only words we heard a lot from Obama I don't really know what Obama's feeling was yesterday when he saw the children photos in Khan Sheikhun I said in Paris in the beginning of 2016 that history will not forgive and I will repeat that here today history will not forgive and if Trump did not do what he is supposed to do politically and ethically, morally he himself again the history will not forgive what happens in Syria does not affect the Syrian people only but the entire world this is what we hope to see in the future just as a quick wrap up I want to thank the panelists I apologize on behalf of Minister Elwood because he had to leave, he had some appointments on the Hill Dr. Masher has a few just final words I just want to thank you all for coming it's been a long day I truly appreciate your saying throughout the day I want to thank the panelists thank the Asfari Foundation and Mr. Asfari for their support and thank our own Carnegie staff especially Jobahut and John Polkery I can't see him for a job well done thank you all so much