U.N. Awaits Syria Green Light for $180m Relief Plan

A $180 million draft plan for delivering humanitarian aid for Syria's one million needy has been drawn up and is awaiting the green light from Syria, the United Nations said on Friday.

A successful assessment mission has been carried out and donors are ready with their cash to provide food, medical and other supplies, said John Ging, director of operations for the U.N. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

"We were able to access all areas that we needed to access to assess the situation and get a more accurate understanding of the needs," Ging said on the fringes of a meeting of aid agencies in Geneva.

"We have shared with the forum the draft response plan that has been developed by the U.N. agencies on the ground.

"That plan amounts to $180 million which is added to the regional refugee response plan of $84 million.

"Our donor community are fully aware of what we have planned. Now it's a question of implementing those plans," he said.

Friday's private meeting, the second so-called Humanitarian Forum on Syria, was hosted by OCHA, the Arab League, the Organization of Islamic Cooperation, and the European Commission Humanitarian Office.

Ging said that the Syrian government had agreed "that there is a serious humanitarian need and there's an urgency for humanitarian action."

"Every day is a day delayed," he said.

"We are now in intense negotiations with our Syrian counterparts on that and we hope that from this forum today the sense of urgency will also result in success from those negotiations."