“It is essential that the international community and all actors that have an influence on the parties to the conflict – and the parties to the conflict themselves, first and foremost – exercise greater efforts towards peace,” Filippo Grandi told reporters while visiting Jordan’s Za’atari refugee camp.

Three weeks after taking up office, Grandi said he had chosen to travel to the region on his first overseas trip to focus minds on finding solutions to the nearly five-year-old conflict.

“If a settlement of the conflict is not found, this crisis will not end and we will continue year after year to ask the international community for huge amounts of money to support refugees that – until there is peace – will not want to go back,” he stated.

Grandi urged governments to take advantage of two upcoming global conferences in London in February and Geneva in March to pledge more financial support for refugees and host countries, and increase the number of legal resettlement places for those escaping the conflict.

According to the High Commissioner’s Office (UNHCR), the protracted nature of the crisis is having a devastating effect on millions of ordinary Syrians, as well as placing a huge burden on neighbouring countries that have so far taken in more than four million refugees.

Jordan is currently host to more than 630,000 Syrian refugees, putting a huge strain on the small kingdom’s natural resources, infrastructure and economy.