Madam Chair, the question allows me to highlight some of the conversations that took place between Valerie Amos and our Minister of International Cooperation and our Minister of Foreign Affairs when she was here on May 25.
She talked about the work that we needed to do with our international partners, our allies. She updated us as donors on the humanitarian situation in Syria and the United Nations response. She stated that the government of Syria and the United Nations had agreed on the modalities for the implementation of the response, things such as the scale of the needs and that approximately one million people were affected with recognition by the government of Syria. However, that number may have already have changed. It might have increased since May 25. Ms. Amos also talked about the key priority locations of affected populations and identified to locations that needed to be worked in.
Ms. Amos identified the key sectors that needed to be addressed, the mode of implementation, including distribution without discrimination, the placement of international staff who will address all those affected, and not just the refugee mandate, and the involvement of international NGOs currently in the country and national and local NGOs who will assist in the relief efforts.
As I said before, we will continue to work with our allies. It is always an enormous job to ensure that people have potable water and sanitation facilities in particular, and moving from that, to ensure that those with medical needs are addressed first. We will continue working with our allies on that and we will continue to consult with people like Ms. Amos.