Baroness Helic – 2016 Parliamentary Question to the Department for International Development
The below Parliamentary question was asked by Baroness Helic on 2016-09-06.
To ask Her Majesty’s Government what progress has been made since the Supporting Syria and the Region conference in February in implementing loans by multilateral development banks and bilateral donors to help vulnerable Syrians and host communities in the Middle East.
Baroness Anelay of St Johns
The Syria Conference raised a record amount of more than $12 billion – the largest amount raised in one day for a humanitarian crisis. This was supported by Multilateral Development Banks and donors’ pledges of around $41 billion loans, including $1.7 billion on highly concessional terms.
The World Bank launched the MENA Finance Initiative to support Syrian refugees and host communities in Jordan and Lebanon at the Spring Meetings in April. Donors pledged $140 million in grants and over $1 billion in concessional loans. Grant pledges have since increased to $225 million.
As part of this initiative, the UK is providing an £80 million concessional loan to the World Bank MENA Finance Facility to support employment opportunities for Syrian refugees in Jordan. In July, a successful first meeting of the Steering Committee saw two Jordan projects approved.
The UK continues to urge donors to deliver on the commitments made at the London Conference in London. The Department for International Development has set up a tracking mechanism that will report on the delivery of the financial commitments made at the London Conference, including humanitarian and development funding and loans. The first report from the tracking mechanism will be published in September.
