Under the effect of lassitude and because of the concomitance with the war in Ukraine, the pledges are likely to be further reduced during the 6th conference of donors for Syria, which is being held this Tuesday, May 10 in Brussels. However, humanitarian aid remains essential for the Syrian population, both those living in Syria and those who have taken refuge in neighboring countries (Turkey, Lebanon and Jordan). Eleven years after the start of the crisis, Franco-Syrian expert Samir Aïta, president of the Circle of Arab Economists, calls on donors to remobilize and invest more in sustainable actions.
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Eleven after the start of the Syrian conflict, where is the integration of refugees in neighboring countries?
Integration is better compared to the beginning of the arrival of refugees. But she remains weak. In addition, refugees are suffering from the financial collapse in Lebanon, where 90% of them live below the extreme poverty line, and from the economic crisis in Turkey and Jordan. In Turkey, the possibility of integration has been stronger for middle-class Syrians, and some have been naturalized. But of the 3.5 million refugees in this country, some still live in camps. And for about a year, state pressure has increased on Syrians working in the informal sector. In Jordan, the images of Zaatari, this huge camp [dans le désert], are shocking. But other Syrian refugees have integrated into the local social fabric, in the north for example, where families are related to those of Deraa [sud de la Syrie]. This also applies to Lebanon: not all refugees live in informal camps [Beyrouth a refusé la création de camps officiels].
Despite the funds injected over the past ten years, the education of young Syrians in Lebanon is a failure: nearly 60% of the 660,000 children of school age have not attended school in recent years. Why this failure: lack of follow-up by donors, mistakes by the host country?
In general, the management by international aid of education – like health – on the Syrian crisis is a failure in the region, due to a lack of centralization and the search for compromise. In Lebanon, school drop-out has worsened with the crisis.
But even before, was there a real analysis of the absorptive capacity of public education?
Syrians probably outnumber Lebanese in the under-fifteen bracket, and a large proportion have not been to school. It’s a ticking time bomb. In northwestern Syria, camp residents are so poor that they take their children out of school to work. Relations between the population of the camps and those of the localities where most of the schools are located are limited.
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