Syria Crisis - Technical Support to UN Agencies - CANADEM 2013

November 2013 - The humanitarian situation in Syria has rapidly deteriorated over the past year as a result of the civil war in the country. The United Nations estimates more than 110 000 people have been killed and hundreds of thousands more wounded due to the violence. Within Syria some 9.3 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance 6.5 million of whom are internally displaced. In addition over 2.2 million Syrian refugees are living in host countries in the region. Women and children are particularly vulnerable to the gravest consequences of the conflict and host countries are increasingly overstretched by the influx of people needing assistance. With DFATD’s support CANADEM is deploying Canadian technical experts on humanitarian assistance to provide short-term support to United Nations organizations and the International Organization for Migration which are responding to the immediate needs of Syrian refugees who have fled to host countries: Turkey Iraq Lebanon and Jordan. This project bolsters the capacity of these agencies to effectively carry out relief efforts.

The expected immediate outcomes for this project include: (i) improved delivery of emergency humanitarian assistance to refugees fleeing the Syrian conflict; (ii) increased capacity to deliver humanitarian relief to Syrian refugees in Turkey Iraq Lebanon and Jordan; and (iii) enhanced and expanded Canadian presence in refugee-hosting countries. The expected intermediate outcome is reduced vulnerability of crisis-affected people especially women and children.