Mr. Ros O'Sullivan:

I will go back over a few of the issues my colleagues have touched on. The UN is stymied in Syria because it is unable to move without the sanction of the government in Damascus and it will take something special for that to change. As it has not happened before, it will have to be something extra special and that is where the committee comes in, not us. We are on the ground, we are implementing and we are addressing humanitarian aid but the UN will have to change the way it works because of the way the situation not just in Syria but in the rest of the world is going today, which has become so complex.

There was a mention of the UN Security Council. If it was a baby of the 20th century, let us sort it out in the 21st century now. The council is not fit for purpose in certain contexts and, therefore, it is not a one-size-fits-all approach but that is all that has been allowed to date. It will take something special to change that and, unfortunately, our select group around the table will not be able to come up with that solution.

The question was posed as to whether there can be a humanitarian solution without a political solution. It is important to clarify that there is no such thing as a humanitarian solution. There is humanitarian assistance and humanitarian work but a political and diplomatic solution to the crisis is required and, in the meantime, there is a need for humanitarian work. One hopes that, at a certain point, there will be an opportunity for recovery and longer term recovery work, which some observers suggest will take decades before Syria returns to where it was before.

With regard to the humanitarian corridor, as my colleagues pointed out, there is no one Syrian opposition. An estimated 400 to 600 different groups and movements make up the sum of the Syrian opposition. They are loosely affiliated by one purpose and that is to see an end to the Assad regime. After that in some respects all bets are off. Some are more fundamentalist and others are more secular while some have a national focus but most have a local and a grassroots focus. We work in a different area from GOAL while MSF works in the area we are but the dynamics and the context are different in every part of Syria due to the make up of the different movements and groups and the struggle for power that is going on at a localised level. In examining how we approach the problem of delivering humanitarian assistance in a slow, considered and measured way, it is because this is probably the single most complex situation we have ever come across. There is no book to which we can refer.

We are experienced and we know what we are doing. We have approaches but it is about flexibility, adaptability and working through the problem. It is about dialogue with the different movements and groups that are now starting to take control in different areas and locations. The amount of tea we drink in Syria right now is unbelievable, because that is how we dialogue. We sit there with groups and movements and engage in dialogue.

In terms of the humanitarian corridors, through a combination of the UN being stymied, they are not able to operate as they were designed to operate. There is no UN operating in the geographic area where we work. When one is talking about a greater balance in where funding goes, as mentioned by one of my colleagues, the funding should go to where the identified needs are and to those agencies that are addressing those needs realistically on the ground. Where the UN is running refugee camps, a proportional amount of aid should go to it. We must recognise the NGOs who are in certain parts of Syria where the UN is struggling to operate legitimately. I will ask my colleague, Peter Doyle, the desk officer for Syria and Lebanon to respond more specifically to Deputy Maureen O'Sullivan's question on camps. He is more familiar with the Lebanese context than I.