Lebanon will receive $450 million from an international donors conference that was held in Kuwait in April to help aid Syrian refugees, Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas said in remarks published Thursday.
Derbas told An-Nahar newspaper that U.N. Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator Ross Mountain informed him Wednesday of the share Lebanon will recieve, of which only 37 percent will go to the Lebanese state. The remaining 63 percent of the $450 donation will be received by NGOs and other groups involved in the humanitarian response to the refugee crisis.
"Lebanon will not be able to receive any of the pledged money until the paralyzed Cabinet approves them as grants," the minister explained.
International donors pledged in April $3.8 billion in aid for Syrians affected by the ongoing war at a donors conference in Kuwait.
Prime Minister Tammam Salam said during the conference that his government had prepared a plan, with a cost “amounting to over $1 billion,” in order to deal with the refugee crisis in Lebanon.
The presence of around 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon, which already suffers from a fragile socio-economic, political and security situation, has presented the country with insurmountable challenges.
More than a quarter of the money came from two countries: Kuwait, which hosted the conference and pledged half a billion dollars, and the United States, which promised the largest single donation of $507 million.
Derbas also revealed that he received a letter from the managing director of the Kuwait Fund for Arab Economic Development, Abdulwahab al-Bader, who said that his country decided to give an extra grant amounting to $30 million to help Lebanon cope with the Syrian refugee crisis.
Bader also inquired about a previous grant by Kuwait that is still in the drawers of the Cabinet and hasn't been endorsed.
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