(MENAFN- Gulf Times) HH Sheikha Moza bint Nasser, founder and chairperson of the Education Above All foundation (EAA), will participate in the Supporting Syria and the Region conference that will take place in London tomorrow.
The conference will bring together world leaders from around the globe to rise to the challenge of raising the money needed to help millions of people whose lives have been torn apart by the devastating Syria war.
The conference is being organised by the governments of the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway and Kuwait, as well as the UN.
Sheikha Moza will take part in the panel of a side event to the pledging summit, which will focus on solutions to provide education to over 3mn Syrian children whose education has been cut short due to the crisis.
She will discuss the actions and approach of EAA in providing access to quality primary education for millions of out of school children across the world, including Syrian refugee children.
Sheikha Moza was recently appointed by UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon as a member of the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) Advocacy Group.
On Monday, HH the Emir Sheikh Tamim bin Hamad al-Thani received a telephone call from British Prime Minister David Cameron, during which they discussed a number of issues related to the donor conference for Syria.
The conference, the fourth of its kind, hopes to meet the UN demand for $7.73bn to help in Syria plus $1.23bn assistance for countries in the region affected by the crisis.
Prime Minister Cameron will host more than 70 international leaders at the summit. They will include German Chancellor Angela Merkel, UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon, Jordan's King Abdullah II, Lebanese Prime Minister Tammam Salam and Chinese Foreign Minister Wang Yi.
Jordan hosts more than 630,000 Syrian refugees and Abdullah yesterday warned his debt-riddled country needed help to ease the burden or Europe would face the consequences.
"Sooner or later, I think, the dam is going to burst," he told the BBC.
He said the kingdom could be "forced to take painful measures that will lead to a greater influx of refugees to Europe if Jordan is left on its own to deal with the consequences of the Syria crisis".
The Syrian war, which began with protests against President Bashar al-Assad in March 2011, has claimed more than 260,000 lives and caused a major humanitarian crisis.
The conflict has forced 4.6mn Syrians to seek refuge in countries in the region - Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Iraq and Egypt - while hundreds of thousands have attempted to reach Europe, sometimes paying with their lives while making the risky Mediterranean Sea crossing.
From toddler Aylan Kurdi € found drowned on a Turkish beach € to the death by starvation of 16-year-old Ali in the besieged Syrian town of Madaya, the eyes of the world have recently been opened to the civilian impact of the ongoing violence.
In response, donors need to do more than just dig deep financially, Cameron urged.
"We need to agree concrete action," he said, calling for the provision of jobs and education in countries neighbouring Syria as the living conditions of refugees deteriorate by the day.
"This is not just in the interests of Syria and her neighbours," he added.
"It is in the interests of Europe too. The more we do to enable people to stay in the region, the less likely we are to see them coming to Europe."
Cameron has called for better trade links between Jordan and the European Union, and for neighbouring countries to impose a minimum limit on the number of Syrians employed in certain sectors. Page 10
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