The United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) Regional Representative to the GCC Countries Khaled Khalifa on Thursday said the Government of Qatar is one of the largest donor governments, which cooperates with international institutions and international organizations providing relief and support for refugees in the Arab region and abroad.
The UNHCR official told Qatar News Agency (QNA) on the sidelines of the International Government Communication Forum which concludes in Sharjah, UAE, today that the State of Qatar is distinguished by an on-the-ground presence of a large number of its non-governmental organizations in terms of number and quality of performance in various countries of asylum.
He pointed out that the GCC countries are among the most countries, which support the refugees and are ranked among the top 20 donor countries in the world, noting in this regard the growing cooperation with the UN organizations over the recent period to meet the challenges.
Kuwait has hosted three Conferences to support Syria, which raised nearly USD 7 billion, he said, adding that the United Arab Emirates plays a pioneer role in this field.Khalifa said that there are more than 16.7 million refugees under UNHCR's mandate and 4.5 million refugees under United Nations Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA)'s mandate while the Arab region hosts 39% of them. 
The crisis of Syrian refugees is one of the biggest challenges facing the world at present, he said, pointing that more than 6 million Syrian refugees are registered with the UN including 2.7 million in Turkey, 1.1 million in Lebanon and 656,000 in Jordan.

Source: QNA