On 5 April 2017, representatives of over 70 countries, international organisations and civil society came together in Brussels for the ‘Supporting the future of Syria and the region’ conference (Brussels conference) to build on momentum from the previous London and Kuwait conferences and mobilise funding to respond to the needs of the people affected by the Syria crisis. The EU, Germany, Kuwait, Norway, Qatar, the United Kingdom (UK) and the United Nations (UN) co-chaired this fifth pledging conference for Syria and the region. Multi-year pledges were made for the 2017– 2020 period and amounted to almost US$10 billion in grants, including US$6 billion for 2017 alone. International financial institutions and donors also announced almost US$30 billion in loans.
This report summarises progress against pledges made by donors at the Brussels conference to respond to needs in Syria and in the neighbouring refugee-hosting countries – Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt. This is the fourth report in a series which tracks financial contributions against pledges made in 2016 and 2017 in response to the Syria crisis.
This report presents an overview of the pledges made in April at the Brussels conference and a breakdown of grant and loan contributions as of 29 September 2017. Information was gathered directly from donors, and supplemented by Brussels conference documentation and data from the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA)’s Financial Tracking Service (FTS). A glossary of the terms used throughout is given at the end of the report, as are details of the data sources and methodology employed.
1. OVERVIEW
At the Brussels conference, donors pledged a total of US$9.7 billion in grants for the four-year period 2017–2020: US$6.0 billion for 2017 and US$3.7 billion for the following three years. By the end of the third quarter of 2017, just over 88% of the pledge total for the year has been met, with contributions of US$5.3 billion. At present, contributions remain US$0.7 billion short of the pledges made at the conference in April 2017. A further US$1.6 billion in grants has been contributed for the upcoming three years, representing 43% of forwardlooking pledges met.
Combined, this means that six months on from the Brussels conference, 71% of grants pledges for the 2017–2020 period have been met, with contributions of US$6.9 billion. As some donors’ budget allocations are yet to be finalised and some may have different disbursement and reporting cycles, further details on planned contributions for 2017 and the remaining 2018–2020 period are yet to be made available.
In terms of loans, US$30 billion was pledged at the Brussels conference for the 2017–2020 period, of which US$2.3 billion was on concessional terms. The data reported so far shows that donors have made available 14% of the total loans pledged, totalling US$4.3 billion and including at least US$864 million that is concessional in nature. However, full details on the terms of concessionality of specific loans are not yet available.