Syria Crisis Fair Share Analysis 2015

Oxfam has calculated that nearly half of the world’s top donors didn’t give their fair share of aid to the Syria crisis in 2014, based on the size of their economies.

The numbers of people in need as a result of the conflict in Syria continues to rise, but the international humanitarian response has not kept pace. Now, in 2015, aid actors estimate that $8.7bn is needed to support 18 million people in Syria and neighboring countries. Based on the size of rich countries’ economies, Oxfam has determined what an equitable share of the required funds would look like for each donor state. So far, for 2015, only the UK has pledged its ‘fair share’ ahead of the donor conference, and overall appeals are only 9.8% funded.

The donor conference in Kuwait on March 31, 2015 is an opportunity to reverse that trend and put Syrian civilians first. Failure to do so will have a devastating effect on million of civilians in Syria and its neighboring countries.

Oxfam has developed indicators to help guide the fair level of commitment that each wealthy country should make in 2015 to alleviate the suffering of those affected by the Syria crisis:

• The level of funding each country makes available for the humanitarian response, relative to the size of their economy (based on gross national income);
• The number of Syrian refugees each country has helped to find safety through offers of resettlement or other forms of humanitarian protection, again based on the size of the economy.