Syria London conference

4th February 2016

In response to today's Syria donor conference in London, Tove Wang, CEO of Save the Children Norway and Save the Children's delegate to the conference, says:

“Assuming the international community makes good on the pledges made today, we will see hundreds of thousands of children who currently are not able to go to school back in education, as well as Syrian families given the dignity of legal employment.

“The total funds pledged, which constitute 73 per cent of the money the UN needs for the Syrian response for the year, will at least guarantee schools, clinics and food distributions can stay open for the time being - we will be monitoring closely to see that these things happen. We also saw very welcome education policy changes announced by the governments of refugee hosting countries including support for non-formal education, which will need to happen hand-in-hand with increased funding to ensure children can access quality schooling.

“Unfortunately we saw verylittle that would support children inside Syria, too many of whom are seeing their schools bombed and towns besieged on a daily basis. Coming off the back of the suspension of the Geneva talks, the world needs to do much more to reach people suffering in Syria with humanitarian assistance.”