UN meeting in Jordan to discuss response to Syrian crisis

Regional directors and representatives of more than 20 UN agencies met in Amman Saturday to discuss how to coordinate UN response to the Syrian conflict. The two-day meeting was held amidst growing conviction within the international community that the Syrian crisis needs an urgent, decisive and wide-scale plan to honor needs of needy Syrians, particularly refugees, the UN in Jordan said in a statement. It added that the conflict in Syria displaced around two million people and their number was growing. Around 97 percent of the Syrian refugees are hosted by neighboring countries. The conflict in Syria is affecting neighboring countries - Turkey, Lebanon, Iraq and Lebanon - thus undermining economic and human development, noted the statement. The Syrian conflict "have reached a critical juncture," said Sima Bahous, Assistant Administrator and Director of the Regional Bureau for Arab States at the UN Development Program (UNDP). The conflict has been escalating and entered its third year "without any signs that it is declining, which threatens development in the host countries over the years," she was quoted by the statement as saying. The statement cited Jordan and said the government in Amman spent more than USD 251 million to provide and maintain basic services for the Syrian refugees in 2012. It estimated extra costs to host the refugees at over USD 1.68 billion. This burden, added the statement, hampered Jordan's efforts to push economic development. Jordan said around 1.3 million Syrian refugees live in the country