Humanitarian-Political Takeaways from and for Brussels VIII Conference 2024 for Syria
1- First of all, the Syria's Brussels eighth conference catching phenomenon for me was the show of some panelists of wealthy Syrian NGOs crying for Syrian children soliciting donors' mony while supporting (at least implicitly) the authority that made them suffer. Some watchers and analysts refer to various kinds of profit-sharing between them.
This reality has enabled me to make a contribution to the political science by recognizing a political phenomenon and suggesting a name and a definition for it. The "Humanitarian-Political Prostitution" is the state of a 'humanitarian' actor with covert or candid political bias that is advocating and fundraising for a humanitarian issue while it supports the very actors and/or factors that brought this issue about.
2- Syrian Religious and churches' subsidiary humanitarian organizations can really go bare of ethics they claim to have in their practices and work in Syria.
3- It is widely believed in Syria that the 'humanitarian' sector in the Syrian regime-controlled territory accounts to the second profitable sector in business terms after captagon sector in light of total absence of monitoring, true audit, and accountability.
4- Poverty falls into the responsibility of the government which holds the power over that population and its country.
5- Relying on various organizations (including church-led) to distribute humanitarian baskets and allowances in the regime-controlled area was one of the worst practices in terms of corruption, favoritism, nepotism, discrimination and political bias with a total absence of accountability and good governance norms.
6- Any funding to the area controlled by the Syrian government should be openly negotiated with the Syrian regime by an international consortium, which is definitely not led by the UN considering its very controversial practice in Syria. The approved terms should be made public for transparency and feedback by various stakeholders.
7- Syria donors should focus on displaced populations and Syrian refugees, especially in the camps, whom are currently in dire need for even very basic life necessities.
8- The international community of Syria donors is very late and quiet falls behind in terms of political ethics. Syria donors should start, as soon as possible, to adopt and abide by political ethical norms and particularly stop funding all parties, actors and authorities that violate human rights and support terrorism and organized crime.
9- The current pattern of international funding in Syria in some aspects is contributing to the Syrian crisis by at least maintaining the status quo that underpins this crisis and at worst providing funding to the actors that protract it.
10- The Syrian crisis and its related Syrian suffering is of political nature in essence, and can only be solved or relieved when all kinds of policies and practices even those of humanitarian purposes and particularly various funding schemes be founded on sound political ideals and considerations.
To be continued.
