Commissioner for Enlargement and European Neighbourhood, Policy Štefan Füle, said: “Lebanon receives the highest number of people fleeing from Syria – Syrians as well as Palestine refugees from Syria – and we know that it puts this country under enormous strain. The hospitality and generosity displayed by the Lebanese towards their neighbours is admirable and commendable. The EU remains committed to assisting Lebanon in its response to the refugee crisis”.

At the same time, he welcomed Lebanon’s comprehensive response plan to deal with the refugee crisis and conveyed the EU´s appreciation of the fact that Lebanon keeps its borders open to people fleeing the violence in the neighbouring country.

The European assistance will focus on capacity building in Lebanese institutions to deal with the crisis, improving access to educational and early childhood development services for both Syrian refugees and those Lebanese communities hosting refugees often in their own homes, empowering local communities socially and economically, strengthening existing structures for the care of children and other vulnerable groups and providing support to Palestine refugees from Syria.

Out of the €30 million announced today to help Lebanon to cope with the refugee crisis, €5 million would be designated for Palestine refugees from Syria.

The additional €30 million brings the total amount of financial assistance offered by the European Union to Lebanon in relation to the Syrian crisis to more than €90 million in humanitarian and non-humanitarian aid.

Through this special measure the European Commission will contribute, in line with the priorities of the Government of Lebanon Response Plan to the Syrian Crisis, to alleviate the medium and longer term needs of both refugees from Syria and host communities in areas in Lebanon with high refugee concentrations.

The European Union continues to look for possibilities of providing further resources to assist and support Lebanon in these challenging times.

While being the smallest of Syria’s neighbouring countries, Lebanon hosts the highest number of refugees. By the last week of March it had received more than 400,000 Syrian refugees, as well as an estimated 40,000 Palestine refugees from Syria.

The EU, with Member States, is the biggest donor of assistance to Syrian refugees both in Syria and in neighbouring countries and has provided almost €580 million of support since the beginning of the crisis.

So far EU support to the consequences of the Syrian crisis in Lebanon is mainly implemented through UN agencies in the country, and goes both to emergency humanitarian response and to alleviate the medium and longer term needs of both refugees and Lebanese host communities which are predominantly in the poorest and most neglected regions of the country.

“The vision of a two-State solution and the achievements of the Palestinian Authority are key elements of stability and progress.They must be maintained and realized in full without further delay,” Ban said in a message to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee that was delivered by Jeffrey Feltman, the Under-Secretary-General for Political Affairs.

“Failure to do so at this critical juncture could have consequences that may prove widely destabilizing,” he told the meeting, which was chaired by Norway.

The Ad Hoc Liaison Committee (AHLC) is a 12-member body that serves as the principal policy-level coordination mechanism for development assistance to the Palestinian people.

Ban underlined that in spite of recent achievements by the Palestinian Authority, the lack of progress on the political track, the ongoing conflict and occupation, the expansion of settlements and the continued Palestinian divide continue to threaten the viability of the two-State solution.

The Secretary-General also drew attention to the dire financial situation of the Palestinian Authority, stating that it presents an additional risk, and called on countries to close the gap in funding needed to provide assistance to Palestinians.

“I urge donors to meet the immediate shortfall of $400 million. But we must also break the annual cycle of fiscal crises that hamper the Palestinian Authority’s ability to sustain its State-building achievements,” he said. “Sustainable economic growth that benefits Palestinians while increasing the Palestinian Authority’s revenue through taxation is essential now more than ever.”

UN agencies will continue to work with the Palestinian Authority to implement its institution-building plan and to make progress in reconstruction efforts in Gaza, Ban said. However, he emphasized that Israel must also ease movement and access restrictions to allow the Palestinian private sector to generate economic growth.

“The current situation is not sustainable. By the end of this year, yet another timeline for reaching a negotiated solution will have lapsed. The establishment of a viable, democratic and sovereign State of Palestine living side by side with Israel is long overdue,” Ban said.

“It is time for the international community to work seriously with the parties in the coming months to chart a new, credible political path towards achieving that vision,” he added.

The revised Syria Humanitarian Response Plan focuses on the priority areas of health, food, livelihoods, infrastructure rehabilitation, community services, education and shelter, in Homs, Hama, Idlib, Damascus, rural Damascus, Deir Ezzor and Aleppo, as well as areas hosting large numbers of internally displaced people.

It was launched at the Syria Humanitarian Forum in Geneva which brought together over 350 participants from Member States, regional organizations, international non-governmental organizations (NGOs) and UN humanitarian agencies to mobilize the necessary resources to provide assistance to the hundreds of thousands of people uprooted by the conflict.

“At the moment, the entire civilian population inside Syria is gripped by fear and despair,” John Ging, the Director of the Coordination and Response Division of the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), told reporters after the Forum. “The basis for that fear is very real.”

UN officials have been calling for enhanced international support to respond to the growing crisis, which has been escalating in recent weeks in many towns and villages, as well as the country’s two biggest cities, Damascus and Aleppo. More than 18,000 people, mostly civilians, have died since the uprising against President Bashar al-Assad began some 18 months ago.

OCHA estimates that over 1.2 million people are internally displaced, more than half of whom are children forced from their homes. There are also more than 245,000 Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries, with more than 100,000 people registered as refugees in August alone.

“This begins to give you a sense of the scale of the tragedy that is unfolding, and the fact that it’s escalating, rather than dissipating,” said Ging, who chaired the Forum.

“It also presents for us on the humanitarian side an enormous challenge,” he added. “Humanitarian action is not a solution in conflict. The solution in conflict is political resolution that ends the conflict and takes the issues into a political process.

“But while there is failure to find that process even to bring about a political resolution to this conflict and end to the violence, we in the humanitarian community have to step up and do more in evermore dangerous circumstances to help people who are suffering more.”

“I have spent the past two days seeing for myself the effects of the terrible food and nutrition crisis that is now affecting at least 4.6 million people in Mali, as well as the difficulties faced by Malians affected by insecurity in the north,” the Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs, Valerie Amos, said during her trip to the African country.

Pointing to her Tuesday visit to the Gabriel Toure nutrition centre in Bamako, the Malian capital, Ms. Amos noted that treatments costing just $100 were restoring to health numerous children affected by severe acute malnutrition and that nearly 150,000 children had been treated in similar facilities across the country.

However, despite the progress, Amos voiced concern that not enough was being done and urged donors to step up with their contributions.

“There are too many other children who are not being reached because we do not have the money to increase our operations everywhere,” she warned. “We asked for $213 million to provide life-saving projects this year; less than half of that has been provided.”

Mali is located in the Sahel region, a semi-arid belt crossing the north of Africa, which is highly exposed to the threat of famine and where 1.1 million children are currently at risk of severe acute malnutrition.

A recent report released by the Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) noted that Mali’s food situation was especially precarious as a plague of locusts in the country’s north was spreading and threatening agricultural production in the rest of the country.

Following her visit on Wednesday to the city of Mopti, Amos acknowledged that the delicate humanitarian situation caused by the food crisis was being further compounded by continued instability and insecurity caused by violence in the north.

In January, fighting between Government forces and Tuareg rebels broke out in the country’s north. The clashes, as well as the proliferation of armed groups in the region and political instability in the wake of a military coup d’état in March, have led the displacement of an estimated 440,000 people.

Amos observed the shipment of supplies being sent by river barge from Mopti to beleaguered towns in the north of the country, including the historic city of Timbuktu, which has been in rebel hands in since April.

“There are many people we cannot reach because so many places are too dangerous for relief organizations to work,” Amos continued, adding that “without additional support, we are not going to reach everyone who needs help.”

“With a constitution to write and a new social compact to reach, Tunisia is at a critical historical juncture,” said Simon Gray, World Bank Country Director for the Maghreb. “Our goal is to help Tunisia create the right environment for this process, by addressing an immediate need to get the economy going again so that it can create jobs for Tunisian citizens, no matter what part of the country they live in.”

The Interim Strategy Note (ISN) was prepared jointly with the International Finance Corporation (IFC), and with the participation of the Multilateral Investment Guarantee Agency. It was informed by extensive consultation with interim authorities, civil society organizations, youth and women’s groups, and the private sector.

The ISN will guide World Bank Group engagement during the period in which the constituent assembly draws up a constitution and organizes elections. A full Country Partnership Strategy will be developed after the elections, to ensure that the programs it underpins are fully aligned with the priorities of the new government. As a temporary instrument, the ISN provides the flexibility that will allow the Bank to adjust its strategy to meet new requests and changing circumstances in a rapidly evolving environment.

“We welcome the excellent partnership that we forged with government, civil society, private sector and other stakeholders in the design of this innovative strategy to help Tunisia lay the necessary foundations for job creation and private sector led growth,” said Eileen Murray, the World Bank’s Resident Representative for Tunisia. “Tunisia is poised to meet the challenges that it faces and the World Bank will do its best to support the country as it charts a new path.”

The ISN will focus on three main areas of support. The first aimed at laying the foundation for renewed sustainable growth and job creation. Related programs will be geared toward restoring investor confidence in the short term and boosting private sector activity over the longer term. The second is the promotion of social and economic inclusion by improving access to basic services for underserved communities and improving the efficiency of social safety net programs. The third will focus on strengthening governance through improved access to public information as the basis for increased social accountability and transparency.

A priority that will cut across all three areas, and which will be integrated into all Bank programs, is to maintain and advance the role of Tunisian women throughout the political transition. Continued outreach remains a priority too. The extensive consultation done in the preparation of the ISN and the diverse range of relationships established will be built upon in the months ahead in engagement with new stakeholders.

“IFC has increased its engagement, played a catalytic role in supporting Tunisia’s private sector since January 2011 and has established a presence for the first time in Tunis. We expect to maintain this positive trend during the ISN period,” said Mouayed Makhlouf the IFC Regional Director for Middle East and North Africa.

The newly announced ISN replaces the 2010-2013 Country Partnership Strategy, which needed to be reframed to meet the needs of post-revolutionary Tunisia.