The United Nations
...a formerly good idea gone bad...
aims to raise $8.4 billion at the Syria donor meeting, which starts on Tuesday in Kuwait.
"Failing to meet the required funds risks resulting in a horrifying and dangerous humanitarian catastrophe," Abdullah al-Maatuq, UN special envoy for humanitarian affairs, told a meeting of NGOs.
Among the aid groups which gathered on Monday,
...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire....
's IHH Humanitarian Relief Foundation made the largest pledge of $100 million. Other donors included Qatar
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates...
's Red Islamic Thingy Society and Kuwait's International Islamic Charity Organization.
UN humanitarian affairs chief Valerie Amos said the donor response at Tuesday's conference "needs to be comprehensive."
She said that the humanitarian situation had deteriorated in Syria with no reduction in violence and children particularly affected.
The aid is urgently required to provide life-saving assistance to half of Syria's population as several UN aid agencies have said they remain underfunded and warned they could halt or downsize their operations.
The Third International Humanitarian Pledging Conference to be held on Tuesday will be chaired by UN Secretary General
the ephemeral Ban Ki-moon... of whom it can be said to his credit that he is not Kofi Annan...
and will be opened by Kuwait's emir, Sheikh Sabah Al-Ahmad Al-Sabah.
At the first and second conferences, also hosted by Kuwait, pledges of $1.5 billion and $2.4 billion were made, but the United Nations has complained that not all pledges were honoured.
In a report on the worsening humanitarian crisis in Syria released last week, Ban said devastation from the fighting had left around 7.6 million people internally displaced.
Another 3.9 million people have sought refuge in neighbouring countries.
"Every day brings more death, displacement and destruction," the UN report said.