Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Washington's USA cuts are looming large over regions that depend on assistance, and it comes as global humanitarian aid is facing a period of acute challenges. You've got flare ups in the world's geopolitical
hotspots Ukraine, Yemen, and Gaza. Meanwhile, though, the European Union is hosting its ninth Brussels Conference today under the theme Standing with Syria, and the aim is to mobilize international support for the country during its transition from the Assad regime. So I'm pleased to say now joining us from Brussels is Tom Fletcher, Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator for the United Nations. Tom, really good
to have you with us on this important day. It isn't just USAID that's leaving a void here. You've also got the UK cutting defense age spending in order to fund defend spending. What are the consequences on the ground of those aids?
So there are very real consequences because of the pace of those cuts and also the savagery of those cuts. There are hundreds of millions of people that we won't reach with life saving aid in the coming years, So we're having to revise all of our plans, all of our strategies to save as many lives as possible with the resources that we'll still have.
And of course migration has been key to the rise of right wing political parties across Europe that could be surely fueled more by these aid cuts.
What do you think, well, I think you know there is a reason why aid is necessary. It's not just for ethical moral reasons. It's also because it's upstream diplomacy, it's upstream security.
Now.
If you engage in countries and help them to build their economies, as we're trying to do in Syria over today in this conference here in Brussels today, then actually you deal with many of the potential downstream consequences of not engage, rise in insecurity, migration, terrorism, in future pandemics, for example. So there is a pragmatic case for aid alongside what many of us would see as the moral ethical case for helping the world's poorest.
Tom good morning, get Sky. Can we talk a little bit about what is happening in Syria right now and the conditions that those return will find. You've got over a million Syrian refugees in Germany, around half claim benefits. There is an effect on the labor market as a result of these people's arrival in this country and their potential departure as well. Would you expect significant numbers of Syrians to return from Europe? What are you seeing? What would you expect?
So? I do expect a lot of Syrians to be heading home, And in fact, we have a scheme up and running already where Syrians are able to go and take a look at the conditions to see whether it's safe to go back. And the Syrians I talked to, the vast, vast majority want to go home. I drove. I spent a week in Syria in December and rove from the Lebanese border all the way up to the
Turkish border to look at those conditions. Now, the biggest impediments to people going back are actually unexploded ordinance, and we're busy clearing that as we speak, but also the lack of power, which means that you know, there are it's harder to rebuild communities, rebuild livelihoods. If we can get those two things sorted, alongside the basic humanitarian needs that I'm working on here in Brussels around food, water, shelter, medicine.
Then I think people will go back, And what Syrians tell me is that they'll go from being an importer of generosity and kindness to being an exporter once again of generosity and kindness.
Well. Tom one of the criticisms, of course, of this, aside from the humanitarian approach and the humanitarian reasoning here of the USAID pullback and some of the reflections you're seeing in other European governments as well, is simply that
this is an elimination of soft power. And in terms of some of the Western governments and their reactions to the rest of the world, are you seeing a tone shift at all in terms of that move or perhaps more and more governments, more and more officials around the world leaning in to that messaging.
Well, you're right that overseas AID has been a massive part of the projection of magnetism and power soft power by countries like the US. It's been an enormous way to show that they are engaged with the world. And I think you don't build a golden age by retreating from the world. You build a golden age by engaging with the world, by leading the world. What we're seeing is that many other countries are looking to step into that space. I was in the golf a couple of
weeks ago. I've been in talking to countries in Asia and across parts of Europe where they're actually saying, we need to scale up now to compensate for these pullbacks, and they're seeing the advantages of moving into that space and really owning that space. So my hope is that we're not going to see these savage scale of funding cuts that currently look like they're on the table, and I'm hoping that we can persuade those countries who are pulling back to see the benefit of what they were doing.
Let's talk a little bit about Ukraine, because obviously that's going to be the news over the next twenty four to forty eight as it looks like we're going to have a meeting between the US President and Vladimir ps in a call at least, what is your assessment, Tom,
And you're an expert in this space. You're currently focused on Syria, but I'm curious to see what you think the similarities with Ukraine will be and what your expectation will be for what that country looks like post a potential peace deal, will refugees be returning, What kind of effect will they have? What are the situations that they're going to find on the ground. Are there similarities lesson
learns that we can take away from Syria. What are you expecting to see and what do you think the kind of the prognosis is therefore for the Ukrainian economy the Ukrainian people.
So they're very different situations. Of course, the Syria conflict has raged now for fourteen years and there is a massive amount of rebuilding to be done again in the Ukraine. And as those communities go back, if there is a genuine piece, a genuine ceasefire, there will be a huge rebuilding program in the East of Ukraine. And I was there in January. I spend a week traveling around those areas on the front line. Again, people need food, medicine,
they need shelter. Many have had their homes destroyed. Of course, the Ukrainian economy is at a more advanced stage anyway than the Syrian economy, and so you would hope that with that capacity they'll be able to rebuild faster. Again. We've got big appeals, as we have for the Syria campaign right now, but we'll need the world to be
generous there too. The lesson I think from both of these conflicts is that the costs of not rebuilding, the costs of not engaging, are actually much greater than the costs of rebuilding and engaging, because you just kick the problem further down the road. So let's see what happens
in the next few days. Let's see if there is a genuine ceasefire facilities on the table that both sides can accept, and let's see if we can help people to rebuild their lives and get back to a more peaceful existence.
Again.
Sounds all pretty good, Tom. We will follow events with a great deal of interest, and what is happening in Syria over the next few days as well. Tom Fletcher, Under Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator for the United Nations, Thank you very much.