We - the leaders of the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, Kuwait and the United Nations - are increasingly concerned about the plight of the Syrian people.

We have been at the forefront of global efforts to provide humanitarian assistance to those displaced by the conflict.

The international community has a responsibility to help the 13.5 million vulnerable and displaced people inside Syria, and the 4.2 million Syrian refugees in neighbouring countries and we must step up our efforts.

Current funding to the 2015 UN appeals has not even reached last year’s levels - $3.3 billion against an appeal of $8.4 billion. As an international community, we must do more.

Now is the time to act. So we will together host a conference on the Syria humanitarian crisis in London in early February 2016, building on previous conferences in Kuwait.

We will invite leaders from countries around the world, NGOs and civil society to come together to:

* raise significant new funding to meet the needs of all those affected by the Syria crisis within the country itself and by supporting neighbouring countries who have shown enormous generosity in hosting refugees to cope with the impact of the crisis.

* identify long term funding solutions, covering 2016 and subsequent years.

* address the longer term needs of those affected by the crisis by identifying ways to create jobs and provide education, offering all those that have been forced to flee their homes greater hope for the future.

The Syria Donors Conference will also pave the way for a broader discussion about how the international community responds to protracted crises, in advance of the UK, UN and World Bank High-Level Forum on Forced Displacement in Protracted Crises later in 2016 and the World Humanitarian Summit in Istanbul in May.

We continue to believe that a political solution is necessary to bring the Syrian conflict to an end and we commit to working with each other and international partners to achieve that and to support the development of an inclusive, peaceful and prosperous Syria.