 If I may, I think we will start. This is one of those rare occasions when I think the panel is going to be daunted by its audience. There's almost as much expertise on all of this out there amongst you as there is up here on the panel. Particularly delighted to see that Yan Eliason has just joined us and Yan. I want you to know that there is a job to retire Deputy Secretary-General, pan saberleidwch ar ychydig. Felly ddim yn gwzirio ar y ti'r bwysig. Ond yma ymlaeth o'r bobl yn ddiweddol y panalysau ac yn ddigon o'r yrwyddiadau ymlaen i'w ddweud o dyn ni'r prydysgrifennu, o'r cyllidion gwybod nôl o'r Anonidela Penar, sy'n credu unrhyw rwyddiad ymlaen i seriol ffattuol, ymlaen i seriol. Anonidela. Yn ni, rwy'n fawr, Tewch chi i lywod ar gyfer y project Syria ar y ôl ar gyfosi'r panel, ac mae'n ddod o bod yn lle yw hwn connectio i ddweudio o hyn. Mae angen ni'n gwaith chi'n glasferu, wrth gwrz yna'r rhyngwlad wedi cael risio yn cael hyn. Roedd e'n rhaid o gyddi ifanc neu rhaid o'r cyffin eich cyfosi, a chydweithio chi'n cyffinledigio yn masgwyd. Yn ymgylch arall, mae'n cael arweth yn cyfrannu. I'm going to move on to another video of the same day off of YouTube. There was a number of videos from that day. I think we would all agree that should be seen, but as you see, it's only had 138 views on YouTube. Similarly another day, the same day again, extraordinary material out there. 527 views. So, the point is that this is a conversation that is not being heard and needs to get a lot louder. I know that a lot of people in this room are interested and concerned about this issue, but the goal here now is to really get more people involved. Finally, just to point out this is a neighbourhood, the refugees are not able to go back and this is why it's so crucial that we consider how we help them. Thank you very much. Great. Nonni, thank you. Well, we've got an extraordinary group of people up here. If anybody can tell us why the efforts to meet the humanitarian needs of the people of Syria are not succeeding, it's this group of individuals each in their way at the coal face on this, a foreign minister of a critical neighbour, the High Commissioner for Refugees, Valerie Amos, the head of OCHA, the coordinator of all UN and other international assistants to Syria, Ruba, a young Syrian living in Lebanon doing a huge amount in the camps for Syrians who are now in exile, and Peter Marra, the head of that extraordinary organisation, the International Committee of the Red Cross. So, I hope we're going to have a very frank discussion of why we're not able to do a better job to overcome this terrible situation, which so many people are describing as certainly the worst crisis of its kind of this century, worse since Rwanda, some people say worse since Cambodia, others. The numbers are astonishing and added to just the sheer sort of physical violence is increasingly the humanitarian violence of people denied food or medical assistance. In that action, perhaps as many lives at risk as there have been from the violence itself in that combination, it reminds some of us of the Democratic Republic of Congo when it descended into civil war. With that, if I may foreign minister, I'm going to start with you because Turkey is on the edge of this, I suspect hugely frustrated at times. Why can't we do more on the humanitarian side? Yes, that's a very important question. Of course we can easily say that this humanitarian tragedy in Syria today is the worst after the Second World War. In all the wars in Middle East in the last 60 years, there were less casualties even in the 67 war or Lebanese war, the 48-year war. Syria is the worst except Iranian Iraqi war. Now we have to, why we have this, one simple answer, very simple but very important. Despite of this fact that this is the biggest humanitarian tragedy, in last three years there was no single UN Security Council resolution regarding humanitarian situation on the ground. There is no single binding resolution for the regime who created this humanitarian tragedy and binding for all the member countries of UN. So the international community did not do a necessary job for this. Yesterday I was in Montreal, I came from Montreal to here and in my statement I started my statement referring to girls. One was last week we were together with Antonio Guterres and neighboring countries ministers in a camp in Turkey humanitarian camp. A girl, a baby who was born one day before we arrived there, her name is Noor, a newborn baby who doesn't know what will be her future and her generations future. Another girl in the hospital in the camp was, her leg was amputated, 16, 17 years old girl. You have many similar cases. We have three categories in this humanitarian tragedy. One is refugees. Refugees are the most luckiest one to be frank. Because at least for example in Turkey of course in other countries Jordan, Lebanon and Iraq they have a safe haven. In Turkey we have 700,000 refugees, 200,000 in camps, 500,000 in cities, in almost all cities of Turkey and Antonio was with us there. We tried to do our best to these refugees. We spent 2.5 billion US dollars. If necessary we will do more because they are our brothers and sisters. Regardless of their ethnic or religious background, not important, we will do more. We have 16, 17 camps now. The camp which we went was for 15,000 refugees. But they are lucky because at least they have everything, meal, safe haven, medicine. 8,465 new babies were born in these refugee camps who do not know when they will go back home. But the second IDPs inside Syria, the second category, they are not as lucky as the refugees because they don't know where to stay. They don't know when they will be attacked and there is no channel for us to reach them. When we realize the refugees are increasing, we established another policy last year to send food and medicine inside Syria. We spent until now around 300 million US dollars sending convoys inside where at least there is a security to reach them. But around 7 million IDPs, we don't know exactly the number, 2.5 million refugees. The solution for them is humanitarian convoys and access. But for this we need a UN Security Council resolution. Just to conclude, the worst group is those who are in neighborhoods where regime is implementing starvation strategy. They are the purpose, they are not only victims of escape but the purpose of the regime is to kill them because of the absence of food and medicine. And I am sure all of you saw the pictures, the photo evidences endorsed by international jurists and investigators. 55,000 photo evidences we have now, 11,000 people were killed by systematic torture and by starvation strategy. This is middle-aged mentality and again I want to conclude with one thing. Despite of this, I said yesterday in Montreal, I said several times in UN Security Council meetings and in all UN forum, Valerie Amos, Antonio Guterres, we were begging for one UN Security Council resolution. There was no single UN Security Council resolution, there was only one presidential statement which is not binding. If UN doesn't, I mean I don't mean UN humanitarian agencies, we respect very much. They are doing excellent job. And we are grateful to Antonio Guterres being with us in camp, we are grateful to Valerie Amos and all humanitarian agencies of UN, they are doing, but the political, without the political binding decision or resolution, they cannot do much. What we need is an urgent UN Security Council resolution binding for all the parties regardless of their positions, for all the countries that this starvation strategy must stop, humanitarian convoys should and humanitarian access must be allowed. Without that, all good intentions of UN agencies or Red Cross, Red Crescent, us as neighbouring countries will not be helping much because the tragedy is too huge to help from distance. Why are we not able to do more for those who fled? First and foremost, let me also say, as Ahmed Awdoglu just mentioned, I do believe that the ramification of lack of consensus in the international community for a clear humanitarian activity in Syria is the ramification in which we all operate and which is the main political reason behind the lack of access of the humanitarian aid. I also agree with Ahmed that the besieged areas are the worst off in terms of assistance. Nevertheless, we do try from within Syria to negotiate access. We are at the present moment in a vicious circle or in a downward spiral where poor security, restrictions by the government and lack of acceptance on some of the armed groups create a climate in which it is almost impossible to get into besieged areas. Sometimes it comes as open political objections. Sometimes it comes as bureaucratic obstacles to go into. Sometimes it comes when we have filled in 50 not verbal and 30 requests and we have all green lights to go in, we are stopped at roadblocks and convoys have to return. This is the reality. So at the present moment it's difficult because we don't have access to make objective assessments. We don't have access to bring assistance according to objective assessment in those places we need it most. We don't have access to the core mandate of ICRC which is protection of civilians and prisoners. We are not in the prisons neither in the detention centres in Syria despite the fact that the Syrian president has promised me more than a year ago that we would have access according to our rules as we apply them in more than 80 countries of the world. We have poor implementation of commitments from all sides in that conflict. Many promises and no implementation of those promises on the ground. So it's many factors with which we are confronted. And then of course the problems sharpen around certain specific issues. We are able to do a great water and sanitation programme in Syria reaching all Syrians in all parts of Syria. We are still able to do a reasonable food distribution programme despite all those obstacles. But at the present moment we do not have any agreement in the dynamic of the actors on the ground and the armed actors on the ground official as well as armed forces with regard to medical assistance to the Syrians. This is the time bomb which preoccupies us most. It's an epidemiological problem in terms of epidemics spreading but it's a public health problem for Syrians and internally it's placed in Syrians and it's a time bomb for the region because viruses do not stop at borders and health issues do not stop at borders. These are just some of the elements of restrictions with which we are confronted. We will continue, and I've just been in Damascus a week ago, we will continue to try the best we can to negotiate spaces where a little bit something can trickle in but it's terribly difficult. We have certain minimal standards that we have achieved in many other conflicts of the world. Focal points with chains of commands on both sides of military operations which would allow us to get in contact with the respective persons in charge of populations and territories. We don't have it in Syria. It's a much more complicated way on mounting an operation. We'll come back to elements of that. Thank you Peter Valerio, you've just caught my eye. I just wanted to add something to Peter, all of which I agree with but as someone who remembers Bosnia, Rwanda, all these other conflicts where as a world we kept saying never again we're never going to allow this to happen. I am deeply frustrated as I think all of my colleagues on the humanitarian side are by the fact that we are in 2014, we have all this information, all of this media, we all want to put the people of Syria first and yet you have this stasis on the political side by the international community which is basically dragging down our work and despite all that data, information, everything else, the huge numbers which people just can't grapple with when we talk about millions. I mean all these millions represent children, they represent women, they represent men. You have got these differences particularly on the Security Council but across the international community globally that is just making action almost impossible and I find it, just as a citizen, leave aside my job as a citizen, I find it impossible that we're in January 2014 and this is the position that we're in. But you listen to this, decent, dedicated people, everybody trying to, with all their staff in the country and region, trying to do as good a job as they can and yet being the first to acknowledge it's not good enough. What do you feel? First of all I want to introduce myself, my name is Rubam Haeson, I'm a Syrian Lebanese and I'm the founder of SOA for Development and AIDA. We've been working for two years with Syrian refugees in Lebanon. Well I'm a Syrian as I said and I'm one among only three Syrians participating in the World Economic Forum but today I'm not representative of the Syrian youth in my country and why do I say that because today I'm not under shelling, I'm not waiting in a two month queue outside UNHCR door, today I'm not in my grave, I'm not mourning a close family member although I lost myself a lot of family members but I'm not in prison or in a refugee tent. Today my stomach is full after 200 days of besieged Ymwg camps where Palestinian Syrians are dying in hunger in 2014. In 10 or 15 years from today if we don't collectively act upon this and yes we can there will be no Syrian to sit in my place because the Syrians who were expected to be sitting in my place will either be suffocating, suffering from psychosocial problems, out of schooling or simply just striving to achieve the minimum basic needs like a loaf of bread. In all honesty it was not easy decision for me to be sitting here when I was invited because when I read the question of the panel what more can the international community do to respond to the Syrian humanitarian crisis I thought as if the international community has done enough as if the international community has exhausted all their options as if the international community is working alone and without local actors and well I think the answer is no. There a lot is expected. The question is what can we do? What can we start doing and how can we do it better? But today I'm here at the end of the day and I think it's a very good opportunity for all of us to think ahead. I mean so far just hearing three of the speakers I'm already in despair but I'm here to give hope to this panel you know because as we are all part of the problem we're also all part of the solution and maybe we should be forward looking instead of just saying. So this is why I'll be very brief in presenting a problem and a very quick solution from a grassroot perspective, from a Syrian local perspective. The first point I want to highlight that has been highlighted by Prime Minister and also picked up by others is the importance of peace and the importance of stopping the shelling and opening safe passageways to besieged civilian places. Now this is something that I can highlight but that others can't because I'm not in a position where I can do something very influential about it but others are. Well there is no UN Security Council resolution yet. What are we all doing? Aren't we all supposed to be lobbying for one? All and I mean all. Everyone sitting here, Berners, Imams, Degutas and everyone sitting in this room. Aren't we all supposed to be forming some sort of civil society or international community lobbying for it? So the solution for that will be to create a lobby group and the World Economic Forum I think is an excellent platform to start such a lobby. We will not be able to lobby maybe the government straight away but we can lobby the UN Security Council to do something about it. And so Berners, Mr Guterres and everyone on this panel, I think how many more field assessment should be done? How many times will a Syrian family answer the same questions from 10 or 20 or 100 NGOs before they receive support? How many more will their dignities be in question? You know every time they have to answer where are you from? Are you with or against the government? How did you leave your country before being able to get support? Now my second point, which I will also, so the field assessment point, I go to the UN agencies who are supposed to be doing field updates, putting them on the website all the time and they have been doing that indeed. By why isn't it being picked up and used by other organisations? We should ask ourselves is it an issue of visibility or of credibility when the NGOs have been repeating the same field assessment and wasting all the money and the time and the dignity of the refugees, re-repeating it? When will we be moved to implementation? Which brings me to my second point about the importance of grassroots initiatives, like ours, like self-redevelopment aid and like many others who have been burgeoning now after 40 years of not being able to act. Local initiatives have been able to act now in the light of the revolutions, so we should be sitting on the table when a decision like 40% of aid is decreased because the vulnerability target group has changed. We should be sitting on the table deciding what the vulnerability criteria is because we are on field and we are Syrians and we know what we want. We want to keep repeating the mistakes of development. We should be determining our own need and we should be. So the solution for bringing the grassroots initiatives and the locals in is very simple. I mean, we've all studied it in development, but I will repeat it here. The solution is to create a platform in which grassroots and international donors will be in touch without a thousand intermediary. I don't want to fill forms to other NGOs who will fill it to other NGOs who will fill it to other NGOs to get one foot basket for one family refugee. I think this is something in the world economic forum. We should start creating a network of grassroots actors alongside with policy makers, journalists. Everyone is welcome on this to start creating better ways of doing field assessments, better way of implementing those field assessments and better way of getting the grassroots initiatives voices heard. Thank you very much. I think you've touched a chord. Antonio, I know you want to say something about the camps in the countries around Syria and how we can support that. But I'm afraid I do have an old UNHCR veteran myself. When I was a field officer in UNHCR, we would have run a million miles away from the Security Council resolution. That wasn't in those days how it operated because the Security Council was always too political and deadlocked. We operated under again international law, basic mandates. I mean, do you think it's right to defer to the Security Council on all of this? Shouldn't we, if the Security Council won't act as humanitarians act on our own? Well, I think that both ways are necessary. I think there is an advocacy in relation to the Security Council or the key international actors. And I think that each one of us should be able to do in cooperation, in coordination, everything we can on the ground. And we are trying to do it. And we are risking the lives of our people to do it. We had all of our organizations that people died in the line of duty in the region. But it's also important to underline that the international community has failed in my opinion in three aspects. First, in three years it has failed to bring peace to Syria. Second, it has failed to create a package of confidence building measures that both sides can respect for access to the people to be possible. And third, it has failed in showing enough solidarity with the countries that are in the front line and are receiving now, according to the government's estimates, more than 3 million people. We have here an honorable minister of Turkey, two honorable ministers of Jordan. Let me start by Lebanon. Lebanon has today 900,000 Syrian registered refugees. But if you count all Syrians in Lebanon, it's probably about one fourth of the Lebanese population today. The conflict is peeling over into Iraq into Lebanon. So it's not only a question of the enormous economic and social and demographic impact of the refugees is the huge security impact of the Syrian crisis as a whole on the countries around. And in Lebanon we know how fragile the political situation is and how much the spillover of the conflict is causing victims inside the country. Now, if one looks at the situation in Lebanon and compare it with the rest of the world, it would mean for Germany to receive 17 million refugees. It would mean for the US to receive 66 million refugees. It would mean for China to receive 280 million refugees. If one looks at Jordan, Jordan will probably spend in the end of 2014 the costs of the refugee presents probably $2.8 million. Turkey has already spent $2.5 billion. According to the World Bank, the impact in the Lebanese economy will be about $7.5 billion in the end of the year. Now, the truth is that international community has not been showing enough support to these countries. And they need not only the refugees themselves, not only the humanitarian agencies that need to be supported, the countries themselves in their programs, because this is no longer only a humanitarian problem for them. It's a development problem, a structural problem. They need massive financial support, but they also need a different attitude of burden sharing. It is unacceptable to see other borders closed to Syrian refugees and some Syrians being pushed back in other borders. It's unacceptable to see a Syrian family drowning in the Mediterranean because they have no direct access to Europe where they should be able to find safety without any problems. It is necessary for all other borders to be opened. It's necessary for an enhanced program of resettlement, humanitarian admission. It's necessary to have much more positive visa policies in relation to Syrians around the world, to have humanitarian efforts in relation to family reunification. So, massive financial support, but also the capacity to show to these countries that the refugee problem is not only a responsibility of the neighboring countries, it's a responsibility of the whole of the international community, and that even knowing that the majority will be there, all the others need to be able to share the burden. Mark, can I just... I really wish it were an issue of mandates, and I really wish that there were an overarching mandate, a humanitarian mandate, a human rights mandate, that trumped the political. The reality is, I go and sit to negotiate, for example, with the Syrian government, they have my mandate in front of me, which says the sovereignty of the state. So, to get to those people who are absolutely suffering in northern Syria across the border from Turkey, to roll the convoys over state sovereignty. So, the overarching humanitarian mandate that would allow us to do what is absolutely necessary is not there. Responsibility to protect after Rwanda, which was part of trying to create that, even that is almost impossible to implement without the agreement of the countries. The rights upfront agenda, which is squarely about putting human rights in the centre of what we, just as the United Nations does, really making that a reality in the countries in which we work, it's incredibly constraining. So, yes, we need to move to a position where the humanitarian and human rights dimensions are the overarching dimensions that actually mean that we could take the action required, but we are not there. Well, let me just one follow up to that and start thinking of questions and comments, because I'm going to turn to you all shortly. One follow up. I expected that answer, obviously. But, you know, if that's the case, and if the presidential statement, which has so many of the right words and concepts in it, is really an empty piece of paper that the Syrian government feels it can ignore. Well, what's the message we should send from this session today to the negotiators of Geneva 2? Because, you know, one hears that there's a little bit of ambivalence about muddling the political with allowing people to divert it into the humanitarian. Well, I think to many of us, the political sadly is going to take quite a time. The humanitarian is now. It's people dying literally as we meet. Should we be sending anything we can do to make those negotiators ensure that even if they don't yet make fantastic quick progress on the political, they don't leave their talks till they've got absolutely unequivocal agreement that there will be a Security Council resolution and that the whole of the international community will support it? There's one absolutely unambiguous message in my view, which is putting the people front and centre, because we all know war has its own logic, both sides, the multiple sides actually in Syria, all think they can win so nobody wants to stop. The issue of access making sure that we are able to go wherever we wish, regardless of who actually is in control of that area. Obviously there are security implications because you have some very extreme groups operating, but the reality is we've worked in Somalia, we've worked in Afghanistan. I make this point all the time. Humanitarian work is about working in insecure environments. So let's not use the security issue as an excuse. An unambiguous and very clear message, which is that we are able to go wherever we wish and we determine the issues around security so we can get to those people who absolutely need our help is the most important thing. But can I just say one other thing? I think it's really hard for us to get the messaging right, because there is so much that we have not been able to do. But I do think we have to pay tribute to those humanitarian workers. Let me talk about inside Syria. Antonio talked about what's happening outside Syria. Peter talked about inside Syria. We've got people working day in, day out. The World Food Programme is feeding three and a half million people. Ten million people able to get clean drinking water because of the work of UNICEF and others. Millions of children vaccinated against polio. We know it's not enough, but we have been able to do that. So yes, it's right to criticise us that we have not done enough. But please don't forget what we have also been able to do. A very fair point, Valerie. Antonio. I think that there is an appeal I would like to make. We know Security Council is always a complex thing to get a consensus in the Security Council. The world is divided. It's clear for me. But there should be a way to bring together the key stakeholders, those countries that are directly or indirectly involved in the conflict, that will not agree easily on a political solution. We know. But at least they could agree on a package of the confidence building measures in which access should be a central one. And put their influence over the parties they are supporting in order to make sure that those confidence building measures would be in fact implemented. It's not enough to have a declaration. And it wouldn't probably be enough to have a Security Council resolution. I think it's important that those that are key stakeholders in this conflict come really together on these, knowing that probably they will not be able to come together on the political solution. Can I just, it's really important that we don't just say a Security Council resolution. Because if you don't have the mechanisms to implement it, it makes absolutely no difference. We have had a Security Council resolution on access to South Codify and Blue Nile in South Sudan for months. We're still not there. We're still not there. Because we don't have backing it up. Anything clear in that resolution as to what the sanctions would be if it doesn't happen. So not just a resolution on its own. What comes with it? UN Security Resolution creates a norm, a value. Therefore it is a must to start. It is not everything. But I am really very frustrated. In several international political meetings as well as fora like these, we made this appeal. Not as a neighbouring country suffering because of all these humanitarian issues, but also as ordinary human being. In several UN Security Council meetings, three UN General Assembly passed in the last three years. And there was a special UN Security Council meeting which we called for on refugees. Nothing serious happened. Why? Because of the difference of opinion. But this political. In the last UN General Assembly, I met with all my colleagues of P5. I told them the chemical weapons resolution on chemical weapons was on the agenda. I backed them. Forget your differences. Put one paragraph on this resolution on humanitarian issue. They promised later we will have a stronger UN Security Constitution, but a presidential statement came which is not binding. So there is no agreed UN norm on this. But second important issue here is global awareness. When we met with Antonio Gutierre, Antonio in Geneva, what we call is global awareness. Unfortunately, not only the states, but also the public opinion makers everywhere in the world. Because in Western world, in Europe, in the United States, the most important criteria is public opinion. But unfortunately, such a global awareness was not being created like what happened in Bosnia or Rwanda, and I fully agree with Sister Ruba. It is not only a matter of politics of states, but here I can appeal all of you, all those representing businessmen, associations, human rights associations, etc. We should start a campaign of global awareness, which will make pressure on political authorities. As a minister of foreign affairs, I am telling you I am ready to receive any pressure on me to do more in the name of Turkey. We are ready. Make more pressure on us. More and more pressure by civil society is needed today. Otherwise, we don't want to intervene, Syria is a mess. But this is a humanitarian issue. The photo evidence appeared three days ago. We didn't see any strong global response seeing all these pictures. The problem of those who are negotiating, I was there for Syrian opposition or Syrian national coalition, there is no problem. They want to have immediate humanitarian access everywhere. But the problem is the regime. And what is the, those who are supporting the regime hiding behind the concept of sovereign of state. But the humanity is dying, they are referring to sovereign of state. State is for human beings, not human beings are for the state. They will kill all Syrians, then still they will say, state is more important than human beings. Why do we need state if there is no human being living in a country? And this should be, we have to create more pressure on all international organizations and on all governments who are claiming to defend sovereign of state rather than human beings on earth. Thank you. I'm really keen to get people in, but Peter, you'd asked for the floor and I mean we have Rubar a last word, but both of you really quick so we can get questions. Well, I certainly agree about the limitations of the international normative framework from sovereignty to lack of responsibility to protect lack of security council resolutions. But there is one issue which make this conflict specific in comparison with many others. And this is the unwillingness and difficulty to negotiate practical arrangement pending consensus in the international community. We don't find practical arrangements at the present moment despite the pressure of needs with which we are confronted. And this is particularly bad. Secondly, we have talked a lot about access. And I would like to add that for me a correlate to access is presence. ICRC has asked for two years now to be able to be present in all parts of Syria within the offices of the Syrian Arab Red Crescent, but with our own international personnel. We have achieved one agreement for Aleppo where we are present and people with the local community and with grassroots organization can at least contribute something and we haven't received any agreements for any other place in Syria than Aleppo. I'm going to put a question to you, which will throw you off probably what you want to say, but something really important, which has been said here that footage at the beginning only 500 people had bothered to watch it. You know, you've heard it from people up here. They need to have public opinion behind them to push the security council to act. People need to be really angry about what's going on in the way we all used to be really angry about Darfur or Bosnia. I still wear a little green armband, which says never again going back to Darfur and before that Bosnia. There's none of that sense of outrage in the world today about Syria. Can you say something about that? Because, you know, this is for young people everywhere, which is the other thing you're part of. How do we get them to respond and support? To be honest, I haven't seen a single person who isn't outraged at what's happening in Syria, but I think these people like me can only do so much as a grassroots initiative. I was enraged two years ago. I started a grassroots initiative. It's now reaching so many people, but I am not in a position of power enough to do a big change. Everyone is enraged. Everyone is getting their voices out. I disagree with you on that, but I think the people who should be doing something about it should do more effort and should put their hands in our hands into doing something. Second thing is we should look at this issue as a long-term issue. I mean, it's very important to look at it as now, what we can do now, the food basket that we want to deliver now, but we should also be forward-looking. Two things I want to highlight here. First of all is the empowerment through education. It's not too soon. People are in refugee camps out of schooling. They will be engaged in violence. It's not too soon to start these. I know they are already running sometime, but we should work into these. This is a forum for businessmen. I think there's an excellent opportunity, although Lebanon is a bit a messy country, but there's a lot of opportunity to start developmental projects with the refugees. I'm locating amazing talents inside the tents, women who do amazing things, young men who have amazing potential. The second thing I want to say and I want to keep emphasizing that point is ownership, ownership of grassroot organization, ownership of the locals, ownership of the Syrian people. This is something that I will keep and keep emphasizing. You guys need the Syrians as much as they need you. We have to all work together in this. Honestly, this panel sounded a lot like a Christmas wish list. I wish this, I wish that. I think it's time. We all know what should or should not be happening. We all know what are the obstacles, but I was looking forward to this panel as a source of hope to everyone in this room that something can be done. Please feel free to contact me and to start something all together. This is a great platform to start a network for monitoring international organizations who we have to report back to them when they give us a grassroot organization. They should also be monitored by us. The beneficiaries should also be monitoring the aid that is supposed to be. Every time I meet a refugee, they tell me millions and billions. It's true. I hear it on TV and everywhere. Billions are being donated to Syria. Where are they going? What can we do to better monitor this aid? What can we do to better field assessment? What can we do to put our hands into each other's hands and turn these people into, instead of just continuing with the emergency relief, which is very important, especially inside Syria. The more important thing today is to start to look into the future, how this aid can be used to empower these people to be their own voices. Thank you very much. Lots of questions. I'm going to start with Annie Sparrow, who's written about Syria for the New York Review of Books. Quickly, Annie. My name is Dr Annie Sparrow and I've also worked in Afghanistan and Somalia. Very difficult places. I've been documenting the destruction, the deliberate destruction of the healthcare system. What we're seeing now is the outbreak of polio in a country which hasn't seen polio for 18 years. It's a very perfect indicator of the catastrophe that we are seeing, which you mentioned too. The public health disaster that's a confluence of the political preference scene of vaccination for years now before the war. Let's not forget there are good reasons for a revolution in the first place. With the confluence of the war, the ruthless attacks on civilians, forcing millions to live in crowded conditions, forcing the spread of infectious disease, starting with things like measles, diarrheal disease, typhoid and now polio, which the regime very successfully covered up for a long time until facilitated by the Turkish government, it was brought to light and yet still, yet still we are only told about 17 cases, there's somewhere between 80 and as many as 250. This is a radical global threat that requires a global response. It requires much more than vaccination. It requires the safe water that 4 million minimum are in need of as documented by Ocha. Ocha, it requires a massive nutritional response because we know whether the cases that are actually shown by the, admitted by the Ministry of Health in Syria or the cases that have been confirmed through the assistance coalition unit that 35 to 40% of these kids have been vaccinated, which shows that either they haven't been vaccinated effectively or it's very compromised by the level of malnourishment. My point being that there are massive humanitarian needs now that polio reflects and that is required because it's only going to get worse. Can I stop there to say this? Would you mind just because we give it to Ken just as a sub Ken quick? You wanted it, you were looking and then we'll come across the aisle. Well to pick up where any left off. I think we all recognize, I mean the Syrian government is not dumb. They know the difference between a presidential statement and a Security Council resolution and that's why you're not able to move around to where you need to move. So I think the real question is how do we get a Security Council resolution? I take your point, Baroness, that a resolution without enforcement is meaningless. Russia has shown it's capable of enforcing via the chemical weapons resolution. So how do we get the resolution? We actually have a window of opportunity between now and Sochi because Putin has shown himself to care about his reputation. He doesn't want to be known as the guy who's underwriting mass murder and mass deprivation in Syria. It had ruined his Sochi party. So how do we make it happen? I'd like to know, Baroness, Amos, why not every week at the Security Council stand up and say, Russia, why are you preventing this resolution? None of this is vaguely the Security Council. Russia, we know who the problem is. Minister, I would tell you why don't you get you and your colleagues to speak out and blame Russia day in and day out for blocking the resolution that would open the borders to the massive humanitarian assistance that's required. Let's put the blame where it lies. Okay, a few more. My name is Abdel Salam Haikal. I'm a Syrian. First of all, I'd like to make sure that the proposal that Truba made will be picked up and she's available definitely after with her two colleagues, Bessam and Forat, the three Syrians that are representing Syrian youth at the World Economic Forum. That said, I think the humanitarian case of Syria is going to continue to snowball as long as the political stalemate is there. And I think it's a possibility that we use it as a Trojan horse to break the impasse. Otherwise, we'll find ourselves here again discussing the crisis that is even much larger. If we're seeing today symptoms of Syria fatigue in the international community with donors, with international organizations, what are going to face when the number of refugees is larger, with the number of IDPs in the country is larger, and when the money that we have collected and gathered so far are becoming diminished by the day. So I think we need to break the impasse through using the humanitarian case as a Trojan horse. Otherwise, we're going to be here again and again and again designing a solution that is fit to the regime or that is fit to the wishes and whims of people that don't want to see a political resolution is not going to lead really to a sustainability of any humanitarian response that we achieve. I'd like to introduce myself. My name is Ziyad Mobsut. I'm from Lebanon. I totally agree with what has been mentioned about Lebanon. In fact, I don't want to get in politics. But a question to the international organization I know from my colleagues that they are quitting their jobs in private companies to go to work for the UNHCR and all those international organizations because they give very high salaries. That's a question. Why 30-40% of the grants are going to salaries and administrative affairs while you have people like Ruba volunteers and I also know many others. Without salaries, all are volunteers without salaries. Some people can do that work for God's sake, for humanitarian sake. Why do we need to spend 40% on salaries? I hear you. Hello. My name is Hurat Al-Hattab. I'm a Syrian activist. First of all, I want to thank you all for raising up the issue of Syria about what we're talking about. Myself, as a Syrian, I believe in empowering the Syrian people. For that, I want to raise three points. Maybe we mentioned them. First of all, empowering the Syrian initiatives that are working on the ground because they have low costs, very low costs. They don't have the administrative costs with all respect to UN, but they have lower costs. They have much more effectiveness. They work faster if there's no bureaucracy. If there's a problem, they solve it once at a time. Also, there is a Syrian or a refugee who is helping a refugee. So you are actually putting a circle of people helping each other, getting back their dignity and losing your dignity. It's much harder than not getting a meal per day. It's much harder, trust me. The second thing I want to talk about is empowering the people who are in Syria doing their work in human rights or aid. I know a lot of people from Red Cross volunteers or Red Crescent who have been killed or shot down or they have been imprisoned doing their work, doing their humanitarian work. Maybe we need to actually give them support. They are in the field doing something. Maybe they feel that there is someone who is supporting them while they are doing what they are doing. The third thing I really want to stress out is I believe that aid is not just a meal or a food basket. It's also education. I myself, I got scholarship from the Asferi Foundation five years ago to the AUB, American University of Beirwt. It actually opened a lot of doors to me. I think education for the young Syrians who do not have universities, who do not have education is very important. I call for all the people who have the power to actually get the Syrians to study anywhere in the places in Cairo, Lebanon, Turkey, Jordan, or even outside. Please empower the Syrian youth. In three years or four years, you will have someone who is part of the problem, who is a refugee. Now he is part of the solution. He is helping out his people. Thank you so much. This was a very rich discussion. I'm going to add in just before coming back to the panel a comment that many in this room will sympathise with, which has come in over the internet. Where are the Syrian women at the Geneva Peace Talks? It's pretty obvious that both from the panel here and from the comments that have come in from the floor, this is an issue that women care hugely about. I think it's one of those issues where they can't understand quite why the boys with toys, the guns and those managing the political process just cannot allow some simple humanity to come into this. To try and save the lives of the men, women and children who are caught up in a conflict that is not of their making. Please, all of you, we've got five minutes to go. We need to sum up at the end, not least to respect Ruber's point that this shouldn't stop in this hall today. There are many of us who devoted to doing whatever it takes to mobilise public opinion, whatever it takes to force the Security Council to act. I just want to touch on that in closing, but I can only do that if everybody could just be very quick in responding to what they've heard from the floor. Why don't I start with you? Yes, I want to refer to the basic value of humanitarian issues in Syria, dignity, dignity, dignity. I know many Syrian families when they escaped, they had a very high standard, life standard. They lost everything. In Turkey in our camps, we just two issues for this dignity about the salaries. What we did when we realised that we need to establish it is long term crisis schools. We established schools in all camps. Today 30,000 at least high school students are getting education in camps and around 10,000 press schools including Antonio So, press school for handicamped children. What we did, we looked for the series of the refugees and we hired teachers among the refugees. They are teaching, they are getting money, they are getting salary, and they are teaching Syrian children. If there is a need of Turkish teachers, we are sending them. Secondly, about even the meal, I mean the food. At the beginning we were giving three days meal ready for them. Later we realised it is much more natural and human for their dignity. If you give a check for them, they buy their materials and they cook in their container house. For every individual, Turkish government is giving 80 Turkish lira. If they are 10 in one family, 800, which is good enough, they don't spend anything else. No electricity, no water, clean water is everywhere. And they buy and they cook themselves. When we went there, it created a natural environment. I am not giving these examples just to praise my country. But the important thing is to act them, to behave them as your guests and they can survive themselves. And for those who are in cities for 500,000, all hospitals are open, free of charge. When they show a certificate that they are Syrian refugees, they don't pay anything. Really I am grateful to mention about Polio. It is a great threat and our minister of health prepared a project on how to go inside. If we were given chance to go inside, hundreds of Turkish doctors, thousands of Turkish human workers will go and solve this Polio problem. But because of this evil concept of sovereignty of state, we cannot go over. This is the problem. And even sometimes our Turkish students are saying we need to carry a Syrian ID so that we can get free of charge health. We will do everything, but what is more needed is how to help. I don't worry about the refugees in Turkey or others, less at least. But people who are living in these besieged neighbourhoods under starvation strategy. This is a crime against humanity. This is almost a Holocaust. And if you do not raise now, it will be too late tomorrow. Thank you very much. I mean literally half a sentence each because we're right out of time. I'm in full agreement with the accountability, the beneficiaries, and we are all involved in a project in the empowerment of people, especially empowerment of women and in the need to have a greater role for local NGOs. But it's not true that any UN organisation spends 40% with staff. It's not true. And what I can tell you is that my organisation has, in six or seven years, more than doubled its activity, tripled the activity that is done with us by local NGOs and reduced our staff in Geneva by 30%. And all UN agencies are doing the same. So we are making a huge effort to go exactly in the line that you've pointed. Yes, with respect to education and in fact that's what the whole no-loss generation campaign is about, which is about serious children and let's not lose a generation of them. 80% of our staff in Syria across all of the UN agencies are Syrians, 80%. And finally on why don't I get up and berate Russia every week. It's naive to think it's just about Russia. I would be berating a different country every week. Russia were actually the first to try to put a humanitarian resolution to the Security Council more than two years ago. Maybe I get a minute because I'm Syrian. No, anyway, there is one question and one comment that I want to make. The question is when I studied development there was one of the chapters in my book called Your Security, Their Security. So today, you know, polio, you know, chemical weapons, it was a huge issue for everybody. It's their security. I wish hunger was contagious. This is all I'm going to say. OK, the second thing is whenever I said the last note I want to say is that we all we have to look for the long term. I don't know about the others but I will be answering my emails. So please do get in touch. And whenever I feel despair, whenever I feel lack of hope, you know, it is always a good idea for me to take the phone and talk to someone inside Syria of my friends to get hope for them. It's always a good idea for me to go inside the camps and meet one of the women who is just asking me please I don't want any food. Just take my son to school. It is always there that we should be looking for hope. Thank you very much. Two elements. The Syrian conflict is definitely the one in which the Red Cross and the Recrecent movement has lost the largest amount of volunteers since we have statistics on losing volunteers. And the core protection of our SARC volunteers is at the very forefront of our work each and every day. Second, polio is just a phenomenon of a disintegrating health system which I consider one of the most critical aspects of the present humanitarian crisis in Syria and in the region. Peter, thank you. Thank you all to the panel. Now look just very quickly what can we take out of this. First, there are no heroes. We have to do a much better job with global public opinion, even though I'm sure Ruba is right that when people are exposed to this they're appalled. But there are NGOs in this room who with no pride at all say that they raised in two weeks for the Philippines more than they've been able to raise for three years for Syria. It is not cutting through. It's become a narrative of violence and conflict and no apparent heroes. The fact that it is actually a story of ordinary Syrians doing heroic things to try and save their nation, their family, their future has somehow got lost and we've got to restore that. But second, we cannot take no from governments. I'm very much with Valerie on this. The Russians are the obvious target and they've paved us gracefully but they're not the only ones. There are no heroes on that Security Council when it comes to this. They keep on playing politics ahead of getting a humanitarian agreement and we've got to challenge them on that starting this week with Geneva. As I say, we can't take no. We've got to go on pressing till we get it and if we don't, we've got to find ways around it. I would just observe on the Security Council at various times it's failed the world and we've gone to the General Assembly. Valerie, your mandate, whatever that official in Syria tells you, actually in the original resolution that creates the ERC is to the General Assembly. The man who wrote it would confirm that I think. There have been moments when the Security Council, which is the world's establishment at its worst in many ways, has had to be challenged by the General Assembly. We may arrive at that moment with this. Can I just suggest the following? Many of us want to see something coming out of this like came out of earlier Davos' around Bosnia and other global crises. Ruba has volunteered to be the recipient of the emails. Anyone who wants to help us as we try to form something going forward, please email her and she and I will work out how between us we can get it to the right places. There are a lot of people in this room committed to doing something. The Asfari's who are sitting here are doing a huge amount as are so many others. Let's kind of not make this just another talkathon at Davos. Let's make it one of those sessions which Davos is brilliant at producing where we go out of here determined to call the bluff of the politicians and the diplomats, break the deadlock, lift the siege of Syria. Thank you all very much.