 Syrian refugees' issue in the world is today probably the most catastrophic humanitarian issue since World War II. The magnitude is amazing, is tremendous, is frightening. We have 11 million displaced people, all in all, from Syria in a country of 22 million people, meaning half of Syria is uprooted, with almost half of these 11 million internally displaced in Syria, and half dispersed in neighboring regions, neighboring countries, mainly Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey, and the rest in Europe and elsewhere. So it is really today something that is no more only a humanitarian catastrophe, it's something that is reaching or confining to international security almost, and the prospects for return of these people is today further and further and more and more difficult for various reasons that our panelists will probably weigh on. Without further ado, I will leave the floor to the author of this amazing report, Maha Yahya. Maha is the director of Carnegie Middle East in Beirut, and she worked on that with a team in Beirut, a team of young scholars there, and as I said, with a lot of Syrians involved. So she will present the report for something like 10 to 12 minutes, and then we have the great chance to have two Syrians that are very much involved in this issue that will discuss and comment the report. Sana Mustafa, who came from New York, especially for this event, Sana is the leader of her own consultancy, the Sana Mustafa Consultancy, and she's also founder and partner of the Network for Refugee Voices. To her right then, we have Brahim Lassil, a good friend of us. Brahim is today a researcher at the Middle East Institute, and he will be soon, unfortunately, leaving us to go to Harvard in order to pursue a master degree there. So without further ado, I will give the floor to Maha first for a presentation of this report, and then we'll go into the discussion. Thank you very much. Thank you. Thank you very much, Joel. Thank you all for joining us today, and thank you, Michelle, for organizing this launch here in Washington. Before we begin, I wanted to start with a quote from a Syrian refugee as to why they left, and this is a young man from the town of Daraia who is now living in Sadnail in Lebanon. What he says is we left the country so we wouldn't kill or get killed. We wanted to live like everyone else. We did not leave to fight. If we wanted to fight, we would have stayed and taken on the world. But we have women and children. We do not want someone to come and rape them. We don't want to be insulted or humiliated. Syrians are the most humiliated nation in the world. Now this quote and what this young man says stands for much of what we heard over a period of a year, a year and something, where we were doing focus group discussions with Syrian refugees both in Lebanon and in Jordan, and trying to understand what prompted them to leave beyond the obvious. It was barrel bombs, and actually it came out to be the obvious of the barrel bombs and very insecure conditions were the main trigger for them leaving, challenging a lot of the kind of narrative that some of them left for economic reasons. But I think also what we wanted to also get a sense of what would make them go back. What is it that they need to see in place for them to go back? And this was prompted also by the sense that a lot of the discussion that was going on about Syrian, about the political settlement in Syria, was based on a fundamentally, to my mind, bizarre assumption, which is that people will just pick up their bags and leave the moment that any deal is signed, no matter what shape that deal looks like. So you tell them, oh there's now peace in Syria, they will just pick up their bags and leave, as if being a refugee is simply about crossing a border. So the report that came out or the project actually was really an attempt to amplify, to give voice to the people who are most concerned with the political settlement, but whose voices were not really being heard in that way. I won't go into the methodology of the report and what you did, it was about 38 focus group discussions, you will find all of this in the report itself, in the annex, there are copies available outside. However, what was significant for us, and I'll talk a little bit further about this, we also tried to get a sense of the refugees who were in Lebanon and Jordan. There are about 1.1 million in Lebanon, well now it's about 500,000 actually, 170,000 I think according to UNHCR who are officially registered and the government says there are another half million who are not registered. In Jordan it's the same story, about 670,000 if I'm not mistaken, who are registered and then there's another half a million or so who are not registered. We tried to get a sense of where they came from, again in an attempt to understand what would trigger their return and to see what are the connections between their areas of origin, the reasons for leaving and what would make them then go back. And the one thing that was interesting is we found that in Jordan, close to 42% of the refugees come from Daraa, which is almost right across the border, another 14% come from Homs. Whereas in Lebanon, almost 42% come from Aleppo and from Homs. The two governments that were most affected by the conflict. Now this has significant implications as you will see shortly in whether people will return or not. Just to say at this point that the conditions in which refugees are living in in Lebanon and in Jordan are far less from ideal. They're living in incredibly difficult situation. I won't go into the detail but into many details. Again, there's much of that in the report, but they lack education. They lack access to healthcare. Most of all, they lack access to, especially in Lebanon, they lack access to residency permits and to justice, which places them in a very vulnerable situation, particularly in Lebanon because they don't, many of them don't have residency permits. So they're very vulnerable to exploitation, whether it's human trafficking, whether it is working and not being paid, whether it is being kicked out of their homes arbitrarily, homes that they are renting. So there are many scenarios and they have very little access to the judicial system in a systematic and important way. Now, when we spoke to refugees about, given their dire conditions, and the significance of this will also I'll point to in a second, but given these dire conditions, we thought this would also have an impact on people wanting to go back. Let me say the bottom line or the kind of top line finding that we had is that people are desperate to go back, not just because they're living in miserable conditions in Lebanon and in Jordan, but because they want to go home. They just want to go home. When you talk to them, they talk, they have a very nostalgic narrative about the Syria that was there before the war. It's a depoliticized Syria and they really just want to go home and live in their own indignity. However, they also realized that that is impossible because their number one demand, their number one need, it's not even a demand, it's a need to go back is safety and security. However, safety and security is tightly connected and intimately connected to a governance, to, you know, whatever governance model is put in place in Syria and in their minds to political transition. They do not believe that it is possible for them to have any kind of safety or security under the current regime and in the current context of Syria. The question we were always asked is who will guarantee that if my child goes to school, they will be able to come back. They're very worried about the militias, they're very worried about warlords and that there will be no prospect for them being able to go back. The other issue is, and this actually also this kind of demand and this link challenges a narrative that we've been hearing very often in the last few months, especially or maybe a year, which talks about Assad is winning and therefore, you know, things will stabilize soon in Syria and people can go back. Unfortunately, Assad is winning means continuation of instability in Syria. It means Syria will continue and I don't, I mean, we can get into the, you know, whether he's winning or not. He's regaining control for sure, but that's a very far cry from saying Assad is winning. The idea is that the perpetuation of the current regime and the way it is right now means that Syria will continue to be an epicenter of instability for a very long time and refugees recognize this. They recognize that they will not have any kind of stable lives. The other, I think key and important issue and when we ask them further saying, okay, if jobs were available, if there was access to services, would you go home? But there's no change in the governance model. There's no political transition. And again, the answer was repeatedly no. They were, it was overwhelming in many ways. We're willing to rebuild our homes with our own hands, but we need to have safety and security and that safety and security cannot be guaranteed in the current conditions. Syrian refugees have lost hope in the international community. They feel they've been let down by the international community. They've lost hope in their own representatives. They don't believe that anyone represents them today. When we asked them about this and they were very clear answers about who represents you on the political arena today. And if they mentioned anyone, they would mention the Free Syrian Army as something that was there at some point that they could relate to. And this also again challenges the narrative that somehow the entire uprising in Syria is an Islamist uprising and should Assad go away, what you're going to have come back is a different form of ISIS. Or, you know, some sort of Islamist extremist. For the refugees, this is not what they look for, what they aspire for, what they think about. They also talked a lot about justice and the need for justice mechanisms. The words transitional justice didn't mean much to a lot of them, but when you talk a little bit, when, I mean, there was some in the, in the, in some of the focus group discussions that had actually taken some, had been part of some training workshops on transitional justice. And once they explained to their, you know, people who were in the focus groups with them what that meant, everyone was like, yes, this is what actually we need. And here there was a lot of debate actually about questions of justice and amnesty. To the minds of many Syrians, the idea of amnesty is very much associated with presidential pardons, which they, for the majority of refugees who are anti-regime, they completely rejected any kind of presidential pardons because they don't trust it. Many of them also went, got into a discussion of at what level they recognize that they cannot have complete trusters. But for them, you cannot have a sound, stable Syria if there is no accountability for the major human rights crimes that were committed. So the idea that they can go back and what they were most concerned about is that if they go back to an environment like this one, then there would be a kind of a law of the jungle because people are going to take justice into their own hands and that there would be revenge killings and so on and so forth. So in this kind of condition, what is it that Syrian refugees want? What is it that they're aspiring to? It can be maybe encapsulated in kind of five broad headlines and these are, we can talk a bit more about the headlines if you want in the Q&A, but they're also elaborated on. One is a free Syria. They talked a lot when we asked them about the Syria they think about and they dream of. They talked about freedom. They used a lot of the liberal values that we all use. They wanted to be free to express themselves the way they want, to choose who governs them, to be able to move around Syria as they wish, without checkpoints and so on and so forth. They talked about the territorial United Syria. We asked them point back questions about whether, what kind of, what do they think of federalism? What do they think of decentralization? What do they think of save zones? And the response on save zones was always safe today, not so safe tomorrow. They recognized that what is safe today, you know, federalism they completely rejected it and the escalation zones at the same way because they felt that this was a prelude to the disintegration of Syria. That Syria will no longer be one unified country. Decentralization, when we spoke a little bit more about what decentralization effectively meant, they found quite appealing the idea of being able to elect who they would like to see the idea that they would have a voice in defining and identifying their own needs was something that was attractive to them. They also talked about an inclusive Syria and when we asked about what does inclusion mean, it wasn't, it was about power sharing but it wasn't about power sharing as per ethnic and sectarian identity. It was about political power sharing and then the minds of many Syrian refugees that we met, the conflict continues to be one of a political conflict. It's not a sectarian conflict. There are sectarian overtones to it, many of them recognize it amongst the young men, they're very angry and that's actually one issue I didn't mention which is for young men the idea of return is very much connected also to the vetting mechanisms that are in place and the conscription law. The conscription law today as it was revamped by the or changed by the by the regime all men between the ages of 18 and 42 have to take part, I mean they have to basically fight and many of the young men said we don't want to take fight and a conflict that has nothing to do with us. We have tremendous respect for the army as an institution but why should I go and be placed at the front line as a Sunni with the Allah we're hiding behind me. So there is a sectarian narrative to the conflict that is emerging more and more particularly amongst young men who feel they're just going to be thrown to the dogs as they say. The other thing they talked about was a representative Syria. They wanted a Syria that represented them that represented the diversity the diverse social makeup of Syria but also recognizes what the country has gone through and finally they talked a lot about a just Syria and when we pushed a little bit further about what is a just Syria and their minds often the example they would use was Europe. The sense of full of law accountability that people would be held accountable for the crimes they've committed and the things that they have done. To kind of unfortunately I forgot to put the quotes from them but I'll find that maybe I'll use some of them in the Q&A but just to kind of wrap up a little bit what were our recommendations in this study. The first recommendation was there has to be a refugee centered framework for the political settlement. So this is not blue sky thinking we truly believe and it's important to kind of bring it back and put it on the table that without the refugee centered framework that acknowledges the political roots of the refugee crisis people didn't flee because there was an earthquake there's a political and the security reasons for why they fled to that refugee centered framework has to make justice the centerpiece of any peace settlement otherwise Syria will continue to be an epicenter for instability and finally uphold the right of refugees to return home and what we mean here is not simply that they can go back to Syria but that they can actually go back to their homes of origin but what that also means is that we need to address a lot of the legislative changes that are happening here today this includes the latest round of urban planning laws including law number 10 which is basically creating new facts on the ground and again we can talk a little bit more about this but urban planning today and reconstruction are being used as tools to strip Syrians and dispossess Syrians of their properties where possible and prevent them from going back it also includes vetting mechanisms also includes construction laws the other part of the right of return for refugees is that there has to be much more concerted effort by the international community to work with host countries such as Lebanon Jordan and Turkey that have done a tremendous job at absorbing large numbers of population but however where there is an increasing pressure now to force people to go back home so this idea of a voluntary return loses completely its meaning if you're making it impossible for people to continue to live in a dignified way on your home territory I think I will just the other perhaps significant issue is that given that there's a lot of discussion about reconstruction and stabilization that's kind of the fourth headline we need to ensure that reconstruction does not empower the regime the way a lot of the humanitarian work that has been money that has come into Syria has actually gone through the regime and through the regime it's gone it's been used through local proxies that all of which are vetted by the regime and are affiliated in one way or the other with the regime the idea of a centrally planned reconstruction or a Marshall plan for Syria is will not happen not in the current conditions so I think we need to look at other models but definitely not make sure that whatever reconstruction or stabilization that's going to happen will not empower the regime and actually allow it to reap the diffidence of having destroyed the country in the first place. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you very much. It was very exhaustive and I think it gave a trend of justice to this to this very dense report which when I read it struck me with in fact the huge amount of accurate figures that we were all of us looking for and so you made I think you gave you gave the good the good summary of this work. Now I will know it's it's it's here so I will pass the floor now if you allow Brahim to sign off first and then to you for five six minutes of comments and maybe criticism of this report and to tell us what you have also from your perspective to add to it. Go ahead. Thank you. Well thank you Michelle and Carnegie for having us and thank you for your work and making sure that these voices are inclusive and heard and they are part of this conversation and listen to. I work mainly on refugee centered issues. I'm Syrian I'm a refugee here in the U.S. and I was actually I seek asylum in D.C. very much here. Then I left to New York and now I work on making sure that I work on two fronts on the policy side of immigration. I work on making sure that immigration refugee and global refugee policies are shaped by refugees and on a more developmental front I work on building engagement projects on refugees that they are inclusive of refugees, meaning the refugees are part of the planning, design thinking, decision making and implementation and executing of these projects. When I was reading back to Mahaz report I would say when I was reading the report which something Brahim and I talked about I think I find myself I could relate a lot to a group that you had mentioned and about their reasons for the obstacles towards us to go back to Syria and I definitely think which globally refugee and when I say refugee I mean those people who flee political political circumstances and war and necessarily environmental and development refugees. So I definitely think what we see the current refugee crisis is an outcome of a political failure and all the humanitarian efforts that we see right now are just mechanisms coping mechanisms to deal with what we have but the root cause and the solution really resides in the root cause which is the political situation and so specifically in regard to Syria I mean being completely against the Assad regime and having you know having fled because of that I think my own return is very much to the presence of the Assad regime and the political situation in Syria. So long story short I definitely agree with everything you said however I would like to emphasize about in seeking any political solution for Syria how refugees are going to be part of this. How Syrian refugees are going to be part of this. I think this is a very important question because as in your findings Syrian refugees didn't find that the current opposition represents them and I agree with that so the question is how could we be part of framing a political solution for Syria and that requires of course refugees having the right to be active and to participate whether on a political level or civil society level in their host countries which I think there are a lot of obstacles towards this especially in neighboring countries such as Turkey, Jordan and Lebanon where refugees are not even recognized as refugees except by UNHCR so for example in Turkey Syrians are their legal status guests that their legal status and of course these three countries have their own economic mainly political also crises and necessarily a place where people could express their opinions and fleeing exactly that fear to a host country where you cannot also be active politically and participate I think this is something to look at and the other thing we are Syrians are unable to vote for example from our host countries to actually participate in any electoral processes that might happen I wonder how would that look like if actually would happen then actually refugees could shape a political solution for them to go back to Syria the other thing I would mention is funding there is donor fatigue as we all know and there is really not much attention anymore towards Syria politically it's not on the agenda of the White House and it's really I can't believe how the White House doesn't see like it's a solution to Iran issues but Syria has lost attention in the media and globally and so the refugee crisis so Syrian refugees particularly the question is if no one empowers us and no one gives us the platform and resources to actually maybe organize ourselves now for the future of Syria then what's next then how are we going to be part of the solution my last point I think on the report I definitely as a state found it very relevant however I would say having as I know Turkey the refugee population in Turkey very well and it's a place where my mom is a refugee there and I had spent a lot of time there and talked with people I think maybe the findings would be a little bit different if we deal with the demographics the Syrian the population that's in Turkey which is a little bit different as they come mainly from the north north of Syria where we see we see a lot of people returning there's thousands have returned but not necessarily to regime controlled areas but to Idlib and to other places to their homes to Aleppo and these are people not necessarily they might be against the regime silently but they are not necessarily active against the regime so once they are able to come back to their destroyed homes they came back and didn't necessarily wait for 100% safe and secure environment so I would say maybe we have to necessarily generalize and Turkey will be probably a little bit different than Jordan and Lebanon I'll leave it there in fact this is before giving the floor to Brahim this was one of my in fact questions because you will have to probably answer all of that yes I mean why I was wondering why reading the report why Turkey was not included I know that it's a question also of feasibility I mean of pure technical feasibility of the research but it would have been interesting to cross it especially that Turkey is probably the only place where Syrian refugees have relatively more freedom of maneuver of action of living of acting etc than unfortunately other Arab countries that are supposed to be more in solidarity with Syrian refugees so let's keep this in mind please thanks Joe and Michelle for having us and thanks for the great report and the great presentation it was difficult to restrain myself from tweeting every sentence you said but they had me to switch my phone off so the report and the findings are really great and I hope everybody of you will really read them it's basic and simple security and safety refugees won't be going back if they don't have security and safety when we think about refugees, refugees are people like us like you and me so they won't be going back if they feel they won't be safe will they be safe we also need to answer that question that question very basically Syria won't be stable and won't be safe and the refugees know it as we do know it as everybody does so the refugees won't be going back in a bigger scale they're probably talking about thousands we have six millions outside Syria so I expect probably thousands or even tens of thousands will be going back to different areas but I don't think we will see big number of refugees going back to Syria because simply they are afraid not afraid not to find a job or for the economic situation but afraid to be detained and killed and the first indicator to prove this point of view is that the regime doesn't release any of the detainees and the detainees issue is very important in the Syrian issue and when you talk about Syrians but usually it's overlooked the detainees is an important part of why the uprisings happened it was an important part of why many people joined because they had people who were detained friends and relatives and it's still a big part of people why they're not going back because poverty is one thing and torture is something else if you talk to any Syrian about why they don't like the regime they will always mention detention and torture it's very very important so if you don't see the regime changing that behavior and I don't expect the regime will change that behavior and release any of the detainees people won't be going back because they are afraid that they will be detained tortured and killed so another reason why the refugees won't be going back because the regime doesn't want them to go back also we have a lot of recent indicators even if we don't want to look back even not two or three years back just let's look back a few weeks ago one indicator how the regime looks at those communities who got defeated around the masques and in other areas those who got into the buses that we only heard about and they went to the north you know there is the highways the short way to go to the north and then there is the very long way going through all the Alawite villages and the regime made sure many of those buses go through those Alawite villages and the Alawite villages they lost the most in the Syrian army fighting the opposition and why is that you also need to ask somebody that went through a civil war fighting somebody you don't see is something and having an eye contact with somebody is something else you create a vivid memory just transfer to your kids and after them when you see them and the regime wanted those in the Alawite villages and those Sunnis who were displaced to see each other and to remember each other so you will never have reconciliation in Syria so I don't think the regime wanted to have reconciliation and although I said Alawite and Sunni communities it's not again that simple as Mahasaid sectarianism is a component of the Syrian conflict but it's not only a sectarian conflict for sure and another indicator is the new laws the regime is passing about properties confiscating properties of those who fled Syria so even if they want to go back and in case their houses were not destroyed and I think the report mentioned that something like 25% of places in Syria were destroyed 30% 30% so 30% of them they don't have places even those who still have places the regime is confiscating them so the regime doesn't want the populations to go back for many reasons, security reasons, political ones and also economic ones and also the regime is well known for the collective punishments tactics over the decades those communities that they are not loyal to the regime usually they get punished by marginalizing them and that's why when you look at the map you see clearly some communities participated in the uprising and others didn't and part of that is because the development plan and the economic plans the regime applied over the years by just focusing on two or three main cities and then marginalizing the country so even if the regime lets just say the regime wants to rebuild Syria and they have the money they will just put the money in the communities that were loyal to them and they didn't participate in the uprising they wanted to put it in the areas where they participated in the uprising those communities won't allow them like we fought with you and now you are going to put the money in those areas that we were against you it's not going to work without reconciliation that's why it's very complicated it's not only about the decision of one or two people it's very complicated without the reconciliation and the political settlement there will be no reconstruction and if the regime gets any money it will absolutely weaponize it as it always does and there is a video that was circulated a few weeks ago also about one of the a member of parliament in Syria holding water that basic just water and asking people who were displaced from Ghouta like Chant Assad is my president Chant Long live Assad to give you the water so imagine how they even weaponize water so that won't change but I was thinking when I saw that video and I sometimes hear that people advocating let's send money to the regime I just imagined that how somebody would advocate to put money to sponsor that video to sponsor somebody holding water and the bread and telling people Chant for Assad to give you this bread and water it's just gonna worsen the situation finally and I probably spoke too much just a couple of recommendations what could be done now the report mentioned that and Sena also emphasized on this people usually many of the refugees they don't see the position that represents them and that I absolutely agree but civil society does many of the communities they trust the civil society the other grassroots and the indigenous player but the funding is being cut starting from DC to other countries across the world especially who will follow suit the fund for the civil society even groups like White Helmets and other big groups so it's very important to keep the fund for civil society so it represents and it helps the refugees even when they go to areas outside the regime control and the second point is protection in areas outside the regime control we almost still have probably third of the country outside the regime control we can people can go back there if there is a real long-term policy to protect them there and help them to rehabilitate those areas one of the very basic ideas like why don't we just build a university in Raqqa I mean it doesn't cost much when you compare it to any military solution but it will help people to go back and to create a model for people under the regime control to show them that those areas are doing great and we help Syrians and we build something long-term so rehabilitate those areas will really help to many refugees to go to those areas outside the regime control so we help Syrians but we don't help the regime to break Syrians more and control them thank you very much Brahim interesting idea I think that we have now a very clear idea of the amazing complexity of issues I mean it's a mix of purely direct humanitarian thing then the economic the requisite of the issue and then the political root the root cause of the issue just one thing you mentioned and I fully agree just to give an idea you mentioned people who never lived a civil war and the difficulty to return and probably the skepticism about return unfortunately Meha and I lived a civil war in Lebanon and just to give you an idea I mean with a much really much much smaller scale different figures the displaced of the mountains from the war of the mountain which is really we're talking about maybe two three hundred thousand people there is a ministry of refugees of displaced in Lebanon since 1992 with a huge budget from the EU from international donors and until now we are in 2018 meaning the war has ended something like 25 years ago less than 30% of the displaced of the mountains came back because of a mix of reason that we find in the Syrian situation much more amplified before opening up the floor I would give Meha really a few minutes to answer some of the remarks that were put forth the Turkish thing and then the two or other two or one or two other ideas that were advanced by Rahim and Sana and then we'll open the floor please thank you Rahim and Sana on the Turkish issue frankly we didn't go into Turkey mainly because of capacity but also funding the funding was really to do Jordan and Lebanon that's the reality of our ability to do work especially because the project like this is incredibly labour intensive now Turkey would be a very different ball game partly because of the way Turkey is hosting refugees and the way they're being treated but also because borders Syria in a way I mean the political complexity is different from that in Lebanon and that in Jordan in Lebanon it's a different ball game you have Hezbollah involved in Jordan it's a different again dynamic along the border I think people in Turkey these those that are people are not being allowed to go and come back they opened the door during Eid last year for people to go back to Turkey to Syria for a month allowing them to come back to Turkey should they want to and of the I think thousands it was I don't believe it was hundreds of thousands of the thousands that went during Eid a very large portion coming back to Syria the idea of refugees being able to move across and having the guarantees that they will maintain refugee status should they decide to go and explore the possibility of return I think is something that is not being discussed enough and it's an important important issue that we should collectively start pushing on international experience shows that when refugees go back home if the conditions are not right and some things go sour they end up leaving permanently whereas giving them this facility to be able to go and check on their homes check on their properties if they have any they don't just check conditions on the ground and see whether they would be comfortable I think is very important and the case of Turkey people have come back but really in small numbers and most of them from what I mean everything I've seen and from humanitarians I've spoken to on the ground many of those who went back to Jarablos in particular which is where there's a big refugee camp I've actually read it those that ended up going back to Aleppo some are you know they're okay with living but they're quite a small minority so I think even then it's not so much about them you know they're living in a better condition in Turkey maybe than they are in Jordan Lebanon definitely and yet still they're not equal to go back because of their concerns about the security the military but simply the ability to go home for them home is not simply about again crossing a border and going back to Syria but going back to their homes to add to something that you said which is that it's not just the that homes are being stripped in mind that 42% of Syrians prior to the war lived in informal settlements informed human settlements which means that they had tenuous housing or tenure to start with already we're seeing examples in Damascus where the first property under the big title of reconstruction and development the first areas that were targeted are the informal settlements of Pasatina Razi which were at the heart of the uprising when it started whereas other informal settlements that are pro-regime are not being targeted so urban planning laws is not just about this possession in terms of taking people's properties away from them and I have an article outside so I don't get into the technical details of this in terms of what this means because there was a lot of misunderstandings of what the law effectively meant and how it was operating and also about saying we're going to follow only the formal interpretation of tenure which in a context like Syria becomes even more problematic than other places so okay I think we'll just the last thing is I think the idea of Sana that refugees need to be part of this process the notion that civil society there is a trust the challenge for civil society in Syria today from I mean it's not about humanitarian support we're talking about organizations that are trying to work on a political not about providing food and drink but it's actually how do you turn this into a political platform that can put forward a vision for Syria one that Syrians will buy into just one word before opening the floor on the issue of return of housing and etc I would add also something very interesting and this is exactly the behavior I mean the gregarious behavior of the regime the fact that for example it has burned completely destroyed physically the registries of real estate so you can't prove today that you are owner of a house somewhere or that you are originally from that region and Homs essentially they burned completely the registers of civil status so you can't no more prove that you are from Homs today if you come back so this is a hidden or astute policy of ethnic cleansing in a way but this is another question we have a very huge very large audience which is shows the interest that you all have for this issue unfortunately this unfortunate issue I will ask you to take the floor briefly to identify yourself very quickly to ask a question with a question mark and not very long if you allow I will start with Perry I saw first and then we will go around Mace can you please give the mic to Perry thank you Perry came back here with Karnie first Maha congratulations this is a really fantastic report both you and Raheem kind of talked about the need to really ensure that reconstruction assistance doesn't go down to the regime's benefit but of course everything in Syria is complicated and while the kind of moral and political imperative is clear there how do you balance that with the kind of countervailing pressure which is that as a result you end up with less assistance and the very people that need require the assistance the most also suffer from that that policy as well yes let's take a few questions first good afternoon everyone my name is Ahmad Bitar I'm also from Syria I arrived five years ago because of the war first of all thank you very much for this report when I'm hearing that I'm hearing like flashbacks in my head like remind me of what the things that I believe for and why I left and why I'm here for me I'm not afraid with anything but returning to Syria is not an option because for more reason because there is a regime there and you might be arrested for no reason and you might disappear or just to be just because you are in the US the thing is a situation now in Syria and my family is still there it's much worse than in 2011 which led to hold this kind of civil war but the thing is people are afraid and this is my main question like people are afraid of the change because they saw what happened in Iraq on the other hand the international community they always stop on the fact that let's take down Assad and that's it this is the movie he's gone people happy the heroes of the movie kisses each other and that's it while it's not like this so my question is very simple like are you aware of or do you think that international community plan for the post-Assad era like do they have anything that reassure people there who might be against Assad but they said okay we saw what happened in those areas where ISIS or not this would make a lot of changes and differences in people's mind inside and outside Syria this is a question that goes well beyond the refugee issue it has to do with the political solution I think it's more addressed to our Syrian friends let me just answer very quickly and then one of you answer your compatriot and then we'll move on to the next question quickly because I don't want to frustrate a lot of people here it is a conundrum Perry I mean the idea that we are stuck between a rock and a hard place if you want to help Syrians who are displaced within Syria the only way you can provide humanitarian support is through the regime and we're seeing what's happening to that support in many ways and on money fronts I would urge that at least the priority now be focused which is something alsobrahim talked about at least in areas that are not under regime control and that provide support there just very quickly on your issues none that I'm aware of in terms of a post Assad plan and I think that has been the big gaping hole I think but I mean we've been saying this for a couple of years now that this fixation on Assad it's not a question of Assad only it's a question of the entire governance system in Syria and what an inclusive governance system could possibly look like and there are I mean there are academic there's the Esquia national agenda for Syria there's the day after the other projects but nothing that I am aware of say one word on the political issue yes I would letbrahim go into the details for your answer but I just don't see any efforts even now on taking down Assad in first place I don't think there is any plan or international or collective efforts to actually deal with Assad I think there's no efforts on that so I'm not sure about post Assad because I don't see any Syria without Assad regime in the near future yeah there is probably not even a policy for the areas outside the regime control and even if one connected quickly to the political discussion now the administration says we that they want to confront Iran but there is no plans about those areas that the Iranian militias in Syria might march to very very soon in the south and in the north and in the east are they going to stop them or not and if they are going to stop them are they going to put any efforts in those areas because again we care about the Syrians there we don't want just to punish the regime and then close everything and not open anything because as you mentioned Ahmad your family is there and my family is there and Sana also has family there but probably again there are areas outside the regime control we can at least focus on those areas where there are militias backed by the US to develop some projects there so people can work safely and probably other people can return to those areas at least for them. Thank all of you for your work I'm Rachel Carrillo and I've been with United Nations Association and more specifically helping serve with the United Nations Association chapter in Boulder Colorado on the board and we have a national program called adopt a future which is about educating refugee children and we're working with United Nations High Commission for Refugees in Kenya not in Turkey or in Jordan or Lebanon or some of the Syrian refugee camps are but actually in Kenya building schools so I've got two different questions relating to education and one is what is going to be the greatest need for those who are returning in terms of education what's happened to the education systems and how can the international community help provide support and then the second question is not exactly related but it's still globally related it's on the global compact for migration and if you're the UN's been having a series of talks relating to the global compact for migration they just had some last week or a week and a half ago I think and wondering if your organizations are signing on to this civil society letter to the United Nations for safe it's basically refugee centered and immigrant centered so if you are signing on and if not why not maybe Sana you can answer this last question and then Maha give us if you have some figures on the educational sector maybe yes the second question here and then we'll go for thank you very much I don't mean to be frivolous but you know listening to such a sad story in a windowless room makes it even more impressive there is a window here my name is Alexander Kravitz from Insight Iraq I have I haven't read the report but I'd like to ask Maha given that you spoke to the refugees at what you mentioned that they all want to go back that you know that they think of going back right but at what point do you think they will stop thinking of going back at what point does let's say kind of reality unfortunately you know sort of set in and might start thinking differently and I also wonder if you have some numbers just numbers on the refugees in Iraq and the second question playing a little bit devil's advocate for me my takeaway is that you know the refugees are not going back and if I were a policymaker I'd start thinking of you know how can I help the millions of refugees outside become more permanent and I wonder if you care to comment on that take these because it's fighting off so you have two questions those three and then the specific question about signing the compact on on on what point will they stop thinking about going back we saw a change as we were doing the focus groups when it became clear there was a point last year when it became clear that Assad was not going anywhere and they had started regaining ground you could already see a shift in the mood of many of the refugees were talking to where they started talking about possibly trying to find a way to Europe they realize they are miserable in Lebanon and Jordan they can't stay there because they will be subjected they are being subjected to a discrimination so they start talking about perhaps we can move to Europe temporarily until things quiet down at least you'll have a stable life there sorry what was the second question I don't have any numbers on refugees education sorry we have to okay I'm sorry what is your question about policy making in Lebanon and Jordan unfortunately in Lebanon now after the parliament we just had parliamentary elections the hype around making refugees go back has increased tremendously there is a realization and there's a lot of panic amongst many politicians who are also now using the refugee issue for populist ends that yes refugees are not I mean where do they go back to there's no place for them to go back so there is an increased rhetoric around we must force them to go back and to push back from the international community saying force people into a situation that will place them in harm's way so I think it's a very serious issue it needs a lot of work because for a country like Lebanon that is 4 million people to have another million added to it and a country that depends very much on sectarian power balance in power sharing even though refugees have no political rights it's still causing a lot of alarm in some circles I think these fears need to recognize but there has to be work there has to be work done with the politicians to understand that the populist rhetoric is not going to get us anywhere but I think we're quite far from this very quickly on education the biggest educational needs for refugees isn't when they go back the educational system in Syria is in pretty bad state but even they're not getting access to proper education especially those above age 12 in host countries those under age 12 are going to double shift schools so we have I think 200,000 out of 400 for example 1,011 that are accessing schools these are school aged children however we don't know what the quality of education that they're getting there's little teacher training there's a lot there are lots of issues accreditation is a big deal I mean one can go into a lot of details there's quite a bit of work if you're interested on this I can share with you some on the global compacts so I'm not sure how much the audience is familiar with the UN current work on migration refugees but the UN is going for the past since September since the Obama summit on migration in September 2016 the UN has created two different processes to deal with the migration and the refugee crisis and this is called the global compact on migration and the global compact on refugees and they will be finalized by July and released some in September the issue is with the global compact I will speak specifically about the global compact on refugee is that it was not representative of refugees refugees had no way to participate in this compact and the formal consultations of UNHCR in Geneva however what we did at the Network for Refugee Voices which we only founded in March last year is that we created so the network now is an umbrella that has around 40 multi-national members from Venezuela, Argentina, Asia, Pacific, Africa, Middle East and refugees so they are mainly refugees and refugee-led organizations so it's a refugee-led organization coalition and we are now the only accredited delegation as a formal seat with the consultations GCR, the formal consultations so what we're doing as a representative body and we are always aiming to be more inclusive encouraging more refugee-led organizations and refugee change makers to join us is that we do a lot of focus groups and we identify specific policies from different refugee communities and we make sure that we communicate these policies to the GCR so this is one of the way that we are able to communicate and communicate our interests and messages as refugees but it's the only platform that exists so far why? My question is a follow-up one on education it's my understanding that in Turkey the former ambassador to Syria the CEO of Amity it's my understanding that in Turkey they're mainstreaming students into the school system once they teach them Turkish but of course that raises questions about whether they will be able to read fluently and speak standard Arabic but in Jordan in Lebanon you mentioned the double shifts up to 12 in Lebanon Jordan I wasn't sure what they're doing and who's going to, Jordan's a poor country Lebanon is a heavily indebted country where are the main sources for educational finance because from what you said this problem's not going away it's going to be possibly generational Okay we have two ambassadors in a row so Ambassador Gabriel now the Mike I want to pick up on something Maha has said now twice and that is this growing narrative in Lebanon by the leadership and the people for is over and people should go home as soon as possible I have two part question one is how do we get the leadership Lebanon to realize the fact that there are no short term solutions and that they're going to have to start a new dialogue about what the longer term solutions are number two what are the win-win policies and programs that we can talk about that might address this concern on that note because I had a question on that what was the sensitivity of the Lebanese authorities during your study I mean of course they knew about it and what was it after because I see one of your recommendations if I'm a Lebanese policy maker I would jump to the wall saying that gearing to a job creation for the host country, nationals and refugees and etc so what has been the reaction of the Lebanese authorities during your study and after it related to Ed Gabriel's question and then not to forget I'll start with Ambassador Kutuf I mean the most of the financing for education is coming from the international from the donor community there is hundreds of thousands of millions of dollars in euros going through the ministries of education both in Lebanon and Jordan to create these double shifts but there's also an entire informal educational system happening they call it informal education which is taking education to children where they are through NGOs however this is not a credit which means that children you know if they were to go into the job market they have no degrees they have no skills to speak of they can't access jobs this is a generational issue we have already a lost generation those that are over age 12 are dropping out of school like flies unfortunately mainly because they can't there is the transition between different educational levels the lack of capacities they've already lost on years of education and kids who came to Lebanon they were 5 now they are 7 years later they're 12 so there are lots of issues and it's a very complex one there's bullying at school sometimes the teachers are not well equipped there are lots of challenges that can be addressed and that need to be addressed but this would not solve the problem down the road the idea of a unified educational system for Syrian students is not there today kids in Lebanon are getting different depending if they go to public or private schools versus the children in Jordan versus the children in Turkey not to mention the different curricula that was and is being taught in different areas depending on who's in control under ISIS they stop teaching them anything except for how to take lives unfortunately so it's a big deal for the Lebanon and at least for the host country the recommendation Joe mentioned yes people are they mean to my mind it depends on who you speak to and the policy on the policy sphere for example the discussions the office of the prime minister is an office that is very sensitive to this issue recognizes the concerns of other political parties in the country but also understands that there's parallel that can be done in terms of pushing people away so they're trying to take the lead and putting together and this was what part of said but also part of the Brussels their plan at the Brussels conference which is to say we want an eight year program of job creation investment in infrastructure and other such things that will allow us to create employment opportunities for both Lebanese and Syrians this is at the same time while other parts of the government particularly the office of the president is coming down and saying the statements have been you know they have to go back and it's safe for them to go back and they must go back immediately now the issue of the refugees is being used by the Syrian regime also as a political card in with I think host countries both Lebanon and Jordan particularly to say normalize relations with us and let's talk then we can talk about taking people back and the more panic there is around this issue the more there is a push to kind of push for some sort of normalization of the relations Joe you asked about the reception before and after during we had no problems honestly people were aware we were doing this we discussed this openly there was no secret that we were doing this study but there was no I think the only kind of shocked reaction I heard was during a meeting where there were members of the EU there and I made this particular recommendation publicly and and there was a shocked reaction not from officials but other Lebanese representatives who were from the private sector saying these kinds of recommendations are not acceptable so I said well let's talk about them because there needs to be a serious discussion around this issue beyond saying no no no we can't do this we don't know it's not acceptable what do you do throw a million people in the sea what do you do with them so there has to be beyond the humanitarian concerns so forth there has to be a serious discussion politicians can't just keep putting their heads in the sand last round of questions Qutayba and then the lady behind thank you congratulations on great report Qutayba will be from Columbia University my question is following up on trends changing trends the report started in October 2016 a lot has been happening then and you mentioned a report that only one eighth of the refugees would favor an option of resettlement outside Lebanon so my question is that was that the final outside Syria would that mean outside Lebanon as well or just staying in Lebanon I mean also and was that the last result at the end of the study or did you see also changing trends and taking that in consideration and also probably previous studies do you think that will change in the future that maybe Syrian refugees with the bad situation in Lebanon and the treatment from the local governments would you think that would change in the future and maybe Syrian refugees would go back to Syria you had a question Hi I'm Tara Siegel and I'm a consultant mostly for the bank a quick question you mentioned that justice is a real issue and desire for many refugees understandably I'm curious as to what justice and accountability mechanisms are most desired okay the last question Hi my name is from Beirut and I'm currently standing at the Wilson Center I have a question for all of you concerning US policy what do you think the White House should have as policies concerning the refugees especially in Lebanon and Sana I have one question for you you said that the White House does not have an agenda on Syria and that could actually solve the issue on Iran can you briefly elaborate on that I think I said that sorry that would I mentioned that the White House doesn't have an agenda to address strategically the war in Syria but and I related that to their issues with Iran not Iraq yes which I think now makes sense have no question but I actually would like to talk about Qutayba's point about and also your point about okay refugees are not returning so what do we do and I think this one of the issues that what you mentioned about which I say is like citizenship I think giving citizenship to refugees is a solution for the refugee crisis because you would say once we have the option if I have the option to go back to Syria and I know if something happens I can return to another country I would go back to Syria so I think this is one of the suggested solutions that actually was found during a study that was conducted by IDIA which is a big organization in New York and they did also survey and research with refugees and they found a lot of refugees that if they were given security and a permanent status in their host country they would consider going back to at least to visit or to see if they can live in their countries which leads to the other thing which is people left to Europe taking the sea because there was no safe passages to Europe there was no safe passages out of host countries neighboring host countries so creating more ways and safe passages for refugees to leave from Turkey and Jordan to Lebanon to be resettled like the private sponsorship program in Canada the humanitarian visa by the France the Santigedio humanitarian corridor by Italy and now Mexico and Brazil and Argentina are doing few programs to safely resettled refugees I think we should encourage more of these programs and I would be curious to know what you think about it but I definitely think these are coping mechanisms again I'm not addressing the refugee crisis I think these are solutions to deal with what we have not to actually solve what we have Rahim would you want to say? Maybe just a quick comment on the policy of the White House again I think it's very important to work on the areas outside the regime control they are controlled now by the refugees backed by the U.S. the U.S. already has bases there why they are not taking care of those areas so people at least part of the refugees can go there but because there is no strategy for that because probably the policy will be changed in a few weeks even there is no investment for demining which is the very very basic of areas that were controlled by ISIS at least to do the demining part of it but so far there is no fund or work or plan by the U.S. or its allies to commit to that To add to something Rahim just said I think beyond working in areas that are under STC control or where there is not at least under regime control this has to be part of also some sort of peace dialogue between the Turks and STC because any move any kind of stabilization in these areas by the U.S. is also being seen on the anti-Turkish so that means to be taken into account that political reality on the in answer to Ateba but also to Sana yes there was a change in in one eighth we are saying we are saying well maybe we are okay with moving to Europe but the majority said no we want to stay here because we want to go back home as I said it became clear that Assad was staying we could feel a shift given that this is a qualitative study and not a quantitative one we stayed away from kind of giving these 50 percent 90 percent it doesn't work in these kinds of studies will this shift again probably this is a very dynamic situation where all human beings these are human beings so their calculations like all of us change depending circumstances I suspect that at this point even more people would rather go to Europe one thing is for certain none of them want to stay in Lebanon that's very short and slightly more than none of them want to stay in Jordan most of them really genuinely would like to go back home at least at this point will this change as the years pass by and they build their lives there probably I mean this is the normal cycle of things the issue of citizenship would probably cause a major upheaval to say the least perhaps before we go to citizenship I could just see the this proposal working its way in Lebanon I'll stop there I think perhaps we go there one idea that I came across recently is I don't know how many of you are aware of the Nansang passport Nansang passport this is a passport that was issued to refugees after and it's named after the person who actually issued it I discovered this by accident recently it was issued to refugees after the end of World War II people who had who were literally stateless they had lost their passport and had no documentation proving who they were or where they came from and it was almost like a legally recognized paper that was recognized by all the countries post World War II it was a language but also legal rights to individuals who had been displaced by the conflict particularly those that came for example from Eastern Europe and could no longer go back home so I think it's something if one can think of a mechanism similar to this that would be a legal status but that is not tied to a nation state as such I think this might be a more constructive way to go in terms of at least trying to address some of the challenges I'll be writing more about this the risk of rendering the Korean temporary situation our time is unfortunately over we should have taken much more time to render justice to such a report I would like to thank Brahim and Sana for their remarks and mainly Mahaf for the tremendous work and I wish you could join me and thank our panelists thank you for having me thank you Peren