The conflict in Syria and its resulting refugee crisis have consistently dominated the headlines of world news organizations for the last half decade. However, the relatively recent proliferation of refugees fleeing to Europe has added a new dimension to the crisis as policy makers and aid organizations alike seek to both accommodate and stem the flow.
Many commentators have brought up the fact that part of the reason many of the refugees that can afford to do so have fled to Europe is that Syria’s neighboring countries, while providing relative safety, don’t have the proper funding or economic and social infrastructures to support these massive communities of people. For example: Lebanon and Jordan, two countries with a collective Syrian refugee population of around 1.6 million, don’t allow a majority of these refugees to work legally, in part due to the lack of available jobs for their own citizens and fears that economic competition could lead to communal violence.
Earlier this week in an interview with the BBC, Jordan’s King Abdullah II said that he felt his country was at a “boiling point” and that the “dam was going to burst” unless the international community provided more support in the form of donations and investments in refugee services in his country, which spends about 25 percent of its budget on the issue. Not only do Jordan and Lebanon support these Syrian refugees and their own citizens, they also provide aid for many refugees of Iraqi and Palestinian origin, causing even further strain on their social services.
Last year, the approximately $2.6 billion in donations was pledged to the United Nations, but of this only 43 percent was actually received. This state of chronic underfunding has been typical since the refugee crisis began at the start of the decade. Luckily, on Thursday, a major conference was held in London and attended by 30 world leaders dedicated to solving the issue of underfunding in Syria’s neighbors. They had originally set a target fundraising goal of $9 billion, including this year’s UN goal of $7.7 billion, in an attempt to compensate for the previous lack of funds but the international community has pledged $10 billion. This has been combined with promises to open markets in Europe in an effort to create an estimated one million jobs in the Middle East, many of which will go to refugees. Additionally, Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan have pledged to provide all Syrian refugee children with education by the end of this school year.
These efforts are extraordinary and necessary if European countries actually intend to assist refugees and stem the flow migrating toward their continent, but it is imperative that the pledges made are actually fulfilled; otherwise none of the aforementioned projects may be successful.