Mr. Moutaz Adham:

The question of sanctions is very complicated. It is beyond any humanitarian organisation to be able to really analyse the impact of sanctions and which factor is contributing to what. As others have noted, multiple factors are at play in this, the ten year conflict, Covid-19, the situation in neighbouring Lebanon and also sanctions. It is very difficult to assess exactly what is contributing to what outcome. The Deputy mentioned the Caesar Act. It is also difficult to assess what its contribution was and what was the contribution of European sanctions. Globally, we know that sanctions hurt the most vulnerable people and we are concerned about them.

On the impact on the delivery of humanitarian response, a factor which has really impacted the different humanitarian organisations is their ability to receive funds into Syria. We get our funding from different donors but then we face major difficulties in receiving those funds inside the country to enable us to deliver the humanitarian response. Recently in Damascus, one of the largest international NGOs was almost forced to downsize because of the difficulty it has been having in receiving funds into Syria.

We also know that there is an impact when we do have to resort to international tenders. Those do not get any participation from the private sector outside Syria because of fear of sanctions. Is it a direct effect of sanctions or a chilling effect, I do not know, it is very complicated. Another example is where were delivering a life-saving response in Deir ez-Zor right after ISIS was defeated there and after the siege was lifted. It was through a national partner and we had to transfer funds through our national fund at Deir ez-Zor. There was only one operational bank there and it was a sanctioned bank. It took us about four months to negotiate an exemption. This was the true definition of a life-saving response. Those are some examples of the impact of sanctions, whether or not it is the chilling effect, on the delivery of the material response.