Aiding and abetting
New report exposes yet more UN aid diversion

A new report from the Observatory of Political and Economic Networks (OPEN) on UN aid money being given to Syrian companies in 2021-22 makes alarming reading. Over half these companies’ owners are accused of human rights violations, with a third being sanctioned by the US, UK, or EU. This means that, in just two years, a staggering $71 million in Western taxpayer funds has directly benefited regime cronies, effectively sustaining Syria’s humanitarian crisis.

The report exposes blatant lapses in UN due diligence. While there was a decrease in overall procurements from Syria across 10 of 14 UN agencies compared to previous years, the proportion of suppliers linked to human rights violations rose by five percentage points. Even more troubling is the eight percentage point increase in suppliers owned by regime cronies. Astonishingly, the more the suppliers were associated with human rights violations, the more UN funding they tended to receive. This indicates that major suppliers can use their leverage to exert pressure on the UN Country Team, which in turn suggests that Syria’s rampant war economy is intrinsically linked to  the regime’s violence. The Syrian Olive Oil Company, for example, received over $33 million from the WFP despite being part-owned by Ghassan Adib Mhanna, the maternal uncle of Bashar Assad’s cousin Rami Makhlouf; and Hassan Sharif, who is reportedly a front for Rami Makhlouf. Another example is First Class, a company partially owned by Nazhat Mamlouk, the son of notorious mukhabarat chief Gen. Ali Mamlouk, which received $123,000 from UNDP.

Procurements from Mahrokat, the state company responsible for storing and distributing petroleum products, inexplicably spiked by 384 percent to $2.49 million. The Assad regime uses Mahrokat’s monopoly to divert aid money and obtain US dollars. Following the February 2023 earthquake, the regime decreed that all foreign organisations and embassies must pay for their oil derivative needs in USD instead of Syrian pounds, setting the price for a litre of octane-90 petrol at $1.50, which is 60-80 percent higher than international prices and even black market rates in Syria. This parallels the regime’s established practice of manipulating exchange rates to obtain dollars – brazen racketeering that warrants publicity and serious pushback. Adding to the suspicion is the disproportionately high number of procurements where the UN conceals supplier identities, citing privacy and security concerns. The WHO, which had a major corruption scandal exposed by the Associated Press in 2022, stands out as the UN agency with the most undisclosed suppliers.

Not so non-governmental
In-country procurements constitute only a fraction of the UN’s total expenditure in Syria. The  Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP), totalling $2.6 billion in 2022, mostly consists of large items such as procurements from abroad, staff salaries, and local partnerships. These partnerships with so-called NGOs are marketed as “community-empowering responses” to conceal the fact that the Assad regime pulls the strings and benefits from UN aid. This does not mean that Syrians in regime areas do not organise voluntarily to help the less fortunate, but an examination of leaked data from the Syrian Ministry of Social Affairs and Employment shows the regime’s deep penetration of the “civil society sector.” The Nour Association for Relief and Development, a seemingly legitimate NGO, for example, received over $2 million from UNFPA and WHO. It is chaired by Mohammad Jalbout, a Syrian-Palestinian accused of numerous human rights violations and close ties to the mukhabarat. Jalbout is also close to the pro-regime militia, Liwa al-Quds, and introduces himself as a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine (PFLP), designated as a terrorist organisation by the US, EU, UK, and Canada. Nevertheless, Jalbout not only received UN funding but continued to be a member of the UN’s Civil Society Support Room (CSSR) until at least 31 January 2024. In a CSSR meeting of that day, Jalbout sat alongside Kais Ramadan, another recipient of UN funding. Ramadan serves as UNDP national expert in Damascus, while at the same time being an influential Baathist leader, a member of the Executive Office of the Damascus Governorate Council, and a protege of powerful National Defence Forces (NDF) commander Fadi Ahmad. Despite his affiliations, his charity, Al-Shabab, received $900,000 from the WHO and the Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator (RC/HC) in Damascus.

The Charity Aoun for Relief and Development, funded by the UN with about $1 million for public health initiatives, is another striking example. It is chaired by Nabil Alksaier, who also serves as manager of Medico Pharma in Homs, a company reportedly linked to the production of Captagon. Another charity, Al-Aamal, that received $290,000, is chaired by Ali Turkmani, who has been a security advisor in the Presidential Palace since 2019 and is the son of former defence minister Hasan Turkmani. The leaked data further exposes the UN’s direct funding for Asma Assad’s Syria Trust for Development (STD) which, together with the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC), coordinates the entire humanitarian response per regime decree. The STD received $2.3 million from UNHCR in 2020-21 for initiatives purportedly aimed at providing legal assistance to returnees and IDPs – and this despite previous assurances from UN officials that STD would not receive funding.

Need for reform
The report concludes that the glaring contradiction of the same people being simultaneously funded and sanctioned results from unquestioning trust between Western donors and the UN. It recommends that the UN should take measures to adhere to its own transparency and human rights due diligence standards; and urges donors to push for greater accountability to ensure UN compliance. The UN’s Parameters and Principles of UN Assistance in Syria instructs Resident Coordinators/Humanitarian Coordinators and their Country Teams to promote and protect human rights by “drawing attention to the root cause of the problem, even if it is politically sensitive”. It further stipulates that the UN must “consider carefully human rights and protection implications, especially with regard to where and how assistance is provided,” emphasising that, “UN assistance must not assist parties who have allegedly committed war crimes or crimes against humanity.” Applying these standards in Assad’s Syria, however, would effectively halt not only procurement but the entire humanitarian operation. The regime has hijacked the state, and Syrian law compels the UN to collaborate with the hijacked state. 

The Observatory of Political Economic Networks’ (OPEN) report Aid Diversion in Syria: Continued Challenges and Policy Solutions will be presented at a side event of the 8th Brussels Conference organised with the Friedrich Ebert Stiftung (FES) on 22 May 2024. Read the full report here.