Humanitarian sector

The value of U.N. major procurement contracts with Syrian companies in 2025 dropped to USD 78 million, from USD 83 million in 2024. The value recorded in 2024-2025 marks the lowest point since 2014. These figures refer to major procurement contracts over USD 30,000. 

A year and half into post-Assad Syria, development banks are reengaging with Syria at different speeds; Germany’s Kreditanstalt für Wiederaufbau, with total ongoing portfolio of EUR 674 million,  is set to open an office in Damascus in August; France’s Agence Française de Développement currently has four active projects and Proparco, its affiliate, is exploring inroads in the microlending scene; while the World Bank Group has launched four grant-based projects and has four more on the pipeline with a combined value of USD 931 million. Meanwhile, other institutions, like the Islamic Development Bank and the European Investment Bank, have adopted a slower tempo. 

A year and a half into post-Assad Syria, the government has established the national structure to coordinate demining efforts, although it is not yet fully operative as it remains severely understaffed and underfunded. Humanitarian organisations are carrying out the bulk of clearance and demining operations. Between December 2024 and July 17, 1,337 explosive ordnance accidents have killed 841 people and injured 1,534 people.

The Syrian government is in talks with the Saudi Fund for Development to finalise the transfer of a USD 1.5 billion grant for the ‘Syria Without Camps’ initiative, the Deputy Minister of Disaster and Emergency Management, Ahmad Qzayz, said. 

Humanitarian organisations working in Syria are operating in an “increasingly constrained financial environment, shaped by recent regulatory changes, limited banking sector capacity, and ongoing exchange rate volatility,” the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) said in a report published earlier this month.

Due to funding shortfalls, the World Food Program (WFP) will “cut emergency food and cash assistance by around 50 per cent, from 1.3 million people to about 650,000 people” from May, a WFP spokesperson told The Syria Report.

Syria’s transitional government inherited a skeletal welfare system in which citizens nominally had access to healthcare, social housing, subsidised goods, and retirement pensions, but reality on the ground was far bleaker. The new government, quick to adopt the free-market agenda and declare the end of the subsidy era, is still in the process of designing its social protection framework. This report offers an overview of what is left of the welfare state and examines the discussions between the government and international organisations to design social protection policies (which include a national cash transfer programme and a unified social registry project). It also looks into the financial viability of pensions, the strategy to counter the low levels of social protection coverage, the under-funding of social housing programmes, and explores the debate around health financing reform.

Syria participated in the 2026 Spring Meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, held in Washington, D.C., between April 13 and 18, furthering the engagement with international financial institutions that restarted last year, following years of absence.

In 2025, humanitarian organisations transferred USD 229.92 million in cash-based assistance programmes in Syria, a 102 percent increase compared to the USD 113.75 million distributed in 2024.

The Syrian Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs has issued a decision outlining the financial and accounting regulations for Non-Governmental Organisations (NGOs) operating in Syria. According to decision No. 284 of 2026 (see Official Gazette issue number 6), NGO accounts must be organised in accordance with International Financial Reporting Standards (IFRS) and prepared within a “supervisory environment that ensures a culture of transparency, accountability, and integrity.”

In the first two months of the year, European, Japanese and Arab donors have funded several projects to rehabilitate health facilities and boost healthcare services, but funding to the health sector remains sluggish.

Qatar announced last week the launch of an initiative to promote the “safe and voluntary return” of Syrian refugees from Lebanon. The project is expected to allow between 100,000 and 400,000 Syrian refugees to resettle in their country of origin through several batches.  

In a move concluding nearly a decade of litigation, French prosecutors have urged the Paris Criminal Court to find the cement giant Lafarge and eight former executives, managers, and intermediaries guilty of financing a terrorist organisation and breaking a European embargo.

Thirty-one Syrian NGOs and associations published  a joint position paper on October 22 criticising a recent directive by the Ministry of Social Affairs and Labour requiring them to obtain pre-approval for accepting funding from abroad or entering into partnerships with foreign entities.

َA recently established NGO advocating for minorities in Syria, with emphasis on the Syrian coast and the Alawite community has been boasting of partnerships with a number of international organisations, including a U.N. agency. However, The Syria Report has learned that no such deals exist.

As of early August, the U.N.-coordinated Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP) had received USD 370 million out of the USD 3.19 billion required – covering only 11.6 percent of the total funding requirements.  

After 14 years of conflict, the bill to repair Syria’s crumbling water and sanitation infrastructure is estimated at USD 10 billion. The state of the water and sanitation infrastructure - from water pipe networks, sewage treatment plants to septic tanks - is dire. Around 70 percent of the raw sewage is not treated, some remote villages receive water just two hours per month, and in some areas water facilities are working only at 40 percent of their capacity.

Following the fall of the Assad regime last December, the humanitarian response - designed to cater to the three former areas of control (northeast, northwest, and regime) - is being redesigned to adapt to the new political reality in Syria.

Although more than 1.3 million IDPs and 577,000 refugees have returned home since the end of 2024, a more abundant flow of returnees is rendered even more difficult by the lack of funds and security challenges. 

The Syria Recovery Trust Fund (SRTF) is currently identifying the needs in areas that were formerly under regime control and that since the fall of the Assad regime in December have now become accessible.