Speaker 1: Bloomberg Audio Studios, podcasts, radio news. Washington's USA cuts are
Speaker 1: looming large over regions that depend on assistance, and it
Speaker 1: comes as global humanitarian aid is facing a period of
Speaker 1: acute challenges. You've got flare ups in the world's geopolitical
Speaker 1: hotspots Ukraine, Yemen, and Gaza. Meanwhile, though, the European Union
Speaker 1: is hosting its ninth Brussels Conference today under the theme
Speaker 1: Standing with Syria, and the aim is to mobilize international
Speaker 1: support for the country during its transition from the Assad regime.
Speaker 1: So I'm pleased to say now joining us from Brussels
Speaker 1: is Tom Fletcher, Under Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and
Speaker 1: Emergency Relief Coordinator for the United Nations. Tom, really good
Speaker 1: to have you with us on this important day. It
Speaker 1: isn't just USAID that's leaving a void here. You've also
Speaker 1: got the UK cutting defense age spending in order to
Speaker 1: fund defend spending. What are the consequences on the ground
Speaker 1: of those aids?
Speaker 2: So there are very real consequences because of the pace
Speaker 2: of those cuts and also the savagery of those cuts.
Speaker 2: There are hundreds of millions of people that we won't
Speaker 2: reach with life saving aid in the coming years, So
Speaker 2: we're having to revise all of our plans, all of
Speaker 2: our strategies to save as many lives as possible with
Speaker 2: the resources that we'll still have.
Speaker 1: And of course migration has been key to the rise
Speaker 1: of right wing political parties across Europe that could be
Speaker 1: surely fueled more by these aid cuts.
Speaker 2: What do you think, well, I think you know there
Speaker 2: is a reason why aid is necessary. It's not just
Speaker 2: for ethical moral reasons. It's also because it's upstream diplomacy,
Speaker 2: it's upstream security.
Speaker 3: Now.
Speaker 2: If you engage in countries and help them to build
Speaker 2: their economies, as we're trying to do in Syria over
Speaker 2: today in this conference here in Brussels today, then actually
Speaker 2: you deal with many of the potential downstream consequences of
Speaker 2: not engage, rise in insecurity, migration, terrorism, in future pandemics,
Speaker 2: for example. So there is a pragmatic case for aid
Speaker 2: alongside what many of us would see as the moral
Speaker 2: ethical case for helping the world's poorest.
Speaker 4: Tom good morning, get Sky. Can we talk a little
Speaker 4: bit about what is happening in Syria right now and
Speaker 4: the conditions that those return will find. You've got over
Speaker 4: a million Syrian refugees in Germany, around half claim benefits.
Speaker 4: There is an effect on the labor market as a
Speaker 4: result of these people's arrival in this country and their
Speaker 4: potential departure as well. Would you expect significant numbers of
Speaker 4: Syrians to return from Europe? What are you seeing? What
Speaker 4: would you expect?
Speaker 2: So? I do expect a lot of Syrians to be
Speaker 2: heading home, And in fact, we have a scheme up
Speaker 2: and running already where Syrians are able to go and
Speaker 2: take a look at the conditions to see whether it's
Speaker 2: safe to go back. And the Syrians I talked to,
Speaker 2: the vast, vast majority want to go home. I drove.
Speaker 2: I spent a week in Syria in December and rove
Speaker 2: from the Lebanese border all the way up to the
Speaker 2: Turkish border to look at those conditions. Now, the biggest
Speaker 2: impediments to people going back are actually unexploded ordinance, and
Speaker 2: we're busy clearing that as we speak, but also the
Speaker 2: lack of power, which means that you know, there are
Speaker 2: it's harder to rebuild communities, rebuild livelihoods. If we can
Speaker 2: get those two things sorted, alongside the basic humanitarian needs
Speaker 2: that I'm working on here in Brussels around food, water, shelter, medicine.
Speaker 2: Then I think people will go back, And what Syrians
Speaker 2: tell me is that they'll go from being an importer
Speaker 2: of generosity and kindness to being an exporter once again
Speaker 2: of generosity and kindness.
Speaker 3: Well. Tom one of the criticisms, of course, of this,
Speaker 3: aside from the humanitarian approach and the humanitarian reasoning here
Speaker 3: of the USAID pullback and some of the reflections you're
Speaker 3: seeing in other European governments as well, is simply that
Speaker 3: this is an elimination of soft power. And in terms
Speaker 3: of some of the Western governments and their reactions to
Speaker 3: the rest of the world, are you seeing a tone
Speaker 3: shift at all in terms of that move or perhaps
Speaker 3: more and more governments, more and more officials around the
Speaker 3: world leaning in to that messaging.
Speaker 2: Well, you're right that overseas AID has been a massive
Speaker 2: part of the projection of magnetism and power soft power
Speaker 2: by countries like the US. It's been an enormous way
Speaker 2: to show that they are engaged with the world. And
Speaker 2: I think you don't build a golden age by retreating
Speaker 2: from the world. You build a golden age by engaging
Speaker 2: with the world, by leading the world. What we're seeing
Speaker 2: is that many other countries are looking to step into
Speaker 2: that space. I was in the golf a couple of
Speaker 2: weeks ago. I've been in talking to countries in Asia
Speaker 2: and across parts of Europe where they're actually saying, we
Speaker 2: need to scale up now to compensate for these pullbacks,
Speaker 2: and they're seeing the advantages of moving into that space
Speaker 2: and really owning that space. So my hope is that
Speaker 2: we're not going to see these savage scale of funding
Speaker 2: cuts that currently look like they're on the table, and
Speaker 2: I'm hoping that we can persuade those countries who are
Speaker 2: pulling back to see the benefit of what they were doing.
Speaker 4: Let's talk a little bit about Ukraine, because obviously that's
Speaker 4: going to be the news over the next twenty four
Speaker 4: to forty eight as it looks like we're going to
Speaker 4: have a meeting between the US President and Vladimir ps
Speaker 4: in a call at least, what is your assessment, Tom,
Speaker 4: And you're an expert in this space. You're currently focused
Speaker 4: on Syria, but I'm curious to see what you think
Speaker 4: the similarities with Ukraine will be and what your expectation
Speaker 4: will be for what that country looks like post a
Speaker 4: potential peace deal, will refugees be returning, What kind of
Speaker 4: effect will they have? What are the situations that they're
Speaker 4: going to find on the ground. Are there similarities lesson
Speaker 4: learns that we can take away from Syria. What are
Speaker 4: you expecting to see and what do you think the
Speaker 4: kind of the prognosis is therefore for the Ukrainian economy
Speaker 4: the Ukrainian people.
Speaker 2: So they're very different situations. Of course, the Syria conflict
Speaker 2: has raged now for fourteen years and there is a
Speaker 2: massive amount of rebuilding to be done again in the Ukraine.
Speaker 2: And as those communities go back, if there is a
Speaker 2: genuine piece, a genuine ceasefire, there will be a huge
Speaker 2: rebuilding program in the East of Ukraine. And I was
Speaker 2: there in January. I spend a week traveling around those
Speaker 2: areas on the front line. Again, people need food, medicine,
Speaker 2: they need shelter. Many have had their homes destroyed. Of course,
Speaker 2: the Ukrainian economy is at a more advanced stage anyway
Speaker 2: than the Syrian economy, and so you would hope that
Speaker 2: with that capacity they'll be able to rebuild faster. Again.
Speaker 2: We've got big appeals, as we have for the Syria
Speaker 2: campaign right now, but we'll need the world to be
Speaker 2: generous there too. The lesson I think from both of
Speaker 2: these conflicts is that the costs of not rebuilding, the
Speaker 2: costs of not engaging, are actually much greater than the
Speaker 2: costs of rebuilding and engaging, because you just kick the
Speaker 2: problem further down the road. So let's see what happens
Speaker 2: in the next few days. Let's see if there is
Speaker 2: a genuine ceasefire facilities on the table that both sides
Speaker 2: can accept, and let's see if we can help people
Speaker 2: to rebuild their lives and get back to a more
Speaker 2: peaceful existence.
Speaker 1: Again.
Speaker 4: Sounds all pretty good, Tom. We will follow events with
Speaker 4: a great deal of interest, and what is happening in
Speaker 4: Syria over the next few days as well. Tom Fletcher,
Speaker 4: Under Secretary for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator for
Speaker 4: the United Nations, Thank you very much.