Al-Thawra: Study on poverty in Syria calls for just distribution of revenues

A UN development official said on Friday the success of any policy in Syria to fight poverty must be matched with justice to distribute revenue, Al-Thawra newspaper reported.

The paper quoted the Resident Representative of the United Nations Development Program UNDP in Syria, Ali Zaatari, as telling a meeting to launch a study on the poverty situation in Syria, that success of any policy to cut poverty needs in an organized way, should monitor poverty and evaluate the policy success, "and that is not enough unless it is matched with policies of justice to distribute the income."

He underlined that any policy or project aimed at increasing development components should take into consideration the issue of "arbitrary housing." "This will not be but by putting down flexible policies to go with Syria's requirements in the financial and banking sectors as well to boost social services in addition to support the substitute production sectors in the future to compensate for the depleting oil (reserves)," Zaatari said.

For his part, Chairman of the State Planning Commission Abdullah al-Aldardari told the meeting that studying total economic policies to fight poverty is an indispensable step to realize poverty situation in Syria. The study comes in framework of preparations for the tenth five-year plan in Syria.