The Syria crisis

Current notice dated 12 December 2024

At the moment, what will happen next in Syria now that the Assad regime has been toppled is uncertain. Many things appear possible: from state failure and radicalisation to a positive scenario of a country that guarantees security, freedom and basic rights for all its citizens. One thing, however, is very clear: a window of opportunity has opened, during which time positive developments are possible and can be fostered. The German Development Ministry (BMZ) is ready to contribute. During the past 13 years of civil war, the foundations have been laid and the contacts have been established that will make it possible to support Syria in making a new start and assist with the building of state structures. Those engaged in the field of German development cooperation have the necessary connections and have experience of working with crucial players on the ground.

Criteria for expanding development cooperation activities

Long term relationships with Syrian civil society and UN agencies are putting the BMZ in a position to respond quickly and adjust its support in the country to the situation on the ground. Development Minister Svenja Schulze made it clear in a press conference on 11 December 2024 that the following criteria are important for the BMZ when it comes to more involvement in Syria:

There needs to be a political process involving all the different population groups and civil society as well.
Syria’s diversity must be preserved. This means that the rights of ethnic, religious and denominational minorities, and the rights of women, girls and vulnerable sections of the population need to be protected.
The education system must be free of ideology, discrimination and marginalisation.
The property rights of all population groups must be upheld. People who have fled from the horrors of the civil war must be able to return in the certain knowledge that they will be able to go back to their plot of land and to their houses.
The relief organisations, first and foremost the United Nations, need unrestricted and independent access to all areas and to all segments of the population in Syria. That explicitly includes the Kurdish north-eastern part of the country.

The BMZ will discuss these expectations with other donors that are active in Syria, above all the United Kingdom, the United States and the EU. Development cooperation activities will then be adapted in line with ongoing developments.

The military escalation between Hezbollah and Israel has brought great suffering to the people of Lebanon. Hundreds of thousands of people are displaced, and according to UN figures about 425,000 people have fled to Syria (as at 22 October 2024), a country that is itself experiencing civil war. Among these refugees are Syrians who had sought refuge in Lebanon to escape the civil war raging in their own country, as well as Lebanese and Palestinian refugees.

People can barely meet their basic needs as a result of the violent conflict that has been going on for 13 years now and the resulting humanitarian emergency. Syria already has the largest number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) worldwide with more than seven million people.

Even before the current displacement crisis began, the BMZ had been supporting projects to meet people’s basic needs in the regions in Syria where the displaced people from Lebanon are now arriving. These projects are already taking into account the needs of refugees and IDPs, including their respective host communities. They are now being expanded in collaboration with the United Nations and Syrian civil society in order to meet the newly emerging needs.

In the current crisis, the BMZ is supporting the people who have fled Lebanon as well as IDPs and host communities and providing them with essential supplies and services. A particular focus is on families and children: we are delivering psychological first aid for children and parents through UNICEF, for example, and supporting schools in Syria so they can take in more children by creating temporary learning spaces, rehabilitating damaged classrooms and distributing learning materials.

In collaboration with UNDP we are creating temporary jobs for refugees that benefit their host communities. This enables refugees to secure their own livelihoods, supports particularly vulnerable groups and mitigates the additional pressure on host communities. Moreover, we are assisting with the rehabilitation of health centres and supplying critical public infrastructure with solar energy.

The BMZ is providing an additional 22 million euros for support measures in acute emergency situations.

The armed conflict in Syria, which has been ongoing since 2011, has sent the region into one of the biggest humanitarian crises the world has seen since the United Nations was founded. It is estimated that heavy fighting across large parts of the country has claimed several hundred thousand lives and left more than one million people injured. According to the United Nations, about 16.7 million people in Syria are now dependent on humanitarian assistance, and millions of people are threatened by hunger.

Two children carry a family hygiene package from UNICEF to their tent in Fafin camp near Aleppo.

More than half of the Syrian population has been displaced: Around five million people have fled to Syria’s neighbouring countries, and more than seven million have been displaced within the country, including a large number of children. There are no signs of an end to the crisis.

A large number of people from Syria have found refuge in Turkey (more than three million). Many have also found refuge in Lebanon and Jordan. Lebanon, which has a population of around four million, has taken in around 770,000 refugees, while Jordan, which has a population of around eleven million, has received around 620,000. Other host countries include Iraq (over 290,000 Syrian refugees) and Egypt (around 150,000). (All figures refer to officially registered refugees, as at October 2024.)

The latest overview of Syrian refugees in the region compiled by the United Nations Refugee Agency (UNHCR) can be found here (External link).

German assistance for people affected by the conflict

Since the beginning of the crisis in Syria, the German Development Ministry (BMZ) has provided significant assistance to the people affected by the conflict, mainly through activities in four neighbouring countries – Turkey, Lebanon, Jordan and Iraq. The BMZ is coordinating this assistance closely with the Federal Foreign Office. Germany’s Federal Foreign Office is responsible for humanitarian aid; the BMZ is in charge of transitional development assistance, which is geared more to the medium to long term. This coordination is intended to ensure that relief efforts and transitional development activities are linked.

The main purpose of the large-scale support provided by the BMZ is to give people prospects for a better future and enable them to provide for themselves in the long term. In addition to providing assistance to Syrian refugees, the BMZ is also assisting host communities in neighbouring countries, as they are bearing the brunt of the refugee influx. This helps the entire region and promotes social cohesion between the Syrian refugees and the population of the host communities.

Germany is one of the largest donors in the context of the Syria crisis. The BMZ invested around 10 billion euros in the region between 2012 and 2023.

International donor conferences for the Syria crisis

The seventh Brussels donor conference entitled “Supporting the Future of Syria and the Region (External link)” took place on 15 June 2023. With earlier conferences having been held in Kuwait (2013–2015), London (in 2016) and Brussels (since 2017), this was the 11th donor conference in support of the Syrian population and Syria’s neighbouring countries.

These conferences highlight the importance of the United Nations-led political process for resolving the Syrian crisis. They serve to mobilise financial support for overcoming the humanitarian crisis and to ensure that the involvement of the international community is co-ordinated and needs-oriented. The major task in the short term is to bring about tangible improvements in the living conditions of the refugees and the people in the host countries. A more long-term goal of the conference will be to reduce the drivers of displacement and make it a viable option for people to stay within the region.

It is hoped that the international funding will improve living conditions for people within Syria and in its neighbouring countries. The international community has identified education and employment, food security and the meeting of other basic needs as the areas most in need of addressing. Given the damage to Syria’s infrastructure caused by the war, the ongoing droughts in the region, the consequences of the earthquakes of 6 February 2023 and an outbreak of cholera in Syria, there is increased need for support with regard to water, sanitation and hygiene. It is also intended that people in the region will continue to receive support in the areas of legal protection, health and shelter.

According to calculations by the United Nations, meeting these needs in 2023 will require funding of 5.4 billion US dollars for the people of Syria and 5.7 billion US dollars for the neighbouring countries.

At the 7th Syria Conference on 15 June 2023, donors pledged a total of 5.56 billion euros in grants and 4 billion euros in loans. Germany committed a total of 1.05 billion euros (of which 568 million was from the BMZ budget). Germany has thus remained one of the largest donors to the region, alongside the European Commission and the US.

Support for Syrians in the regions affected by the earthquakes of 6 February 2023

Street scene in a city affected by an earthquake on February 6, 2023

On 6 February 2023, two earthquakes registering 7.8 and 7.7. on the Richter scale hit Turkey and Syria, causing catastrophic damage. In Syria, 5,954 people lost their lives, and 392,000 were left homeless. The public infrastructure in the north-western region of Syria, which was already severely affected by the civil war, was heavily damaged. The provinces of Afrin, Harim and Azaz along with Latakia and the city of Aleppo were hit hardest by the earthquakes. According to UN estimates, more than 15 billion euros will be needed to rebuild the infrastructure that was damaged by the earthquakes.

The international community came together in an act of solidarity in response to the earthquakes. On 20 March 2023, the EU held a donors' conference for the victims, where around seven billion euros was pledged. Some 2.6 billion euros of that was in the form of grants for Turkey and Syria. The German government pledged 238 million euros (including an amount of 117 million euros for humanitarian aid and for repairing the damage caused by the earthquakes in Syria), which made it one of the biggest bilateral donors at the conference.

The BMZ provided short-term support immediately after the earthquake and remains engaged in efforts to restore critical infrastructure in the region.

It has provided funding, for example, for the replacement of destroyed ambulances and medical equipment and the repair of damaged hospitals. In an effort to ensure food security, the BMZ is supporting the rehabilitation of agricultural irrigation systems and of bakeries. And the BMZ is also providing long-term support so that people in the earthquake region can rebuild their livelihoods, for instance through vocational training and programmes for starting microbusinesses, with a special focus on women. The Development Ministry is also supporting children’s return to school by rehabilitating school buildings. People who have experienced trauma are receiving psychosocial support.

Further examples of the BMZ’s involvement

The focus of the BMZ’s crisis response activities is on development measures that are aimed at strengthening the resilience of people and local structures affected by the conflict in the medium and long term. These measures tie in with short-term humanitarian assistance contributions and aim to create an environment that will enable the population to become independent from emergency relief in the medium term. Within Syria, all BMZ interventions are implemented without any cooperation with the Syrian government or with the de facto authorities in north-west and north-east Syria.

Two examples of the BMZ’s regional approaches are the Partnership for Prospects and transitional development assistance in the context of the Syria crisis.

Example Transitional development assistance in the context of the Syria crisis

View of a ditch in the Kutupalong refugee camp, Cox Bazar in Bangladesh

Living conditions for people in Syria are poor in all respects: government authorities are not in a position to repair damaged infrastructure or supply households with basic goods and services. Most families have received humanitarian assistance at least once because of a lack of income.

The BMZ’s transitional development assistance has the aim of strengthening the resilience of the vulnerable Syrian population. On the one hand, this means restoring infrastructure, for example in the areas of water supply, agriculture and health. On the other, it also means improving access to informal education, training and income in order to create prospects for the future and raise living standards.

In Syria’s neighbouring countries, transitional development assistance is primarily aimed at relieving the increased pressure on basic infrastructure faced by communities that have taken in refugees. German support is contributing to improving healthcare, for example, and ensuring access to education for all. Support is also being given to activities that foster social cohesion.

Example Partnership for Prospects (P4P)

A cash-for-work project in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq.

In order to give refugees and local people in the region a better future, Germany launched an employment drive called Partnership for Prospects. One important aspect of this programme is the three-pronged approach: “jobs for adults – training for young people – schooling for children”, which is the guiding principle behind most of the measures.

“Cash for work” programmes create jobs that offer local people and refugees quickly available income, enabling them to improve their living conditions in a self-determined way. The outcomes of their work (e.g. new infrastructure) benefit the whole community. Jobs in areas such as education and healthcare provide social services like school lessons and medical care. Members of the local host communities are actively involved in the programmes. This contributes to social peace and helps to prevent social tensions.

In 2022, the programme created some 80,000 jobs. If the family members of those who have found jobs are also counted, then this employment programme is helping to improve the living conditions and prospects of about 450,000 people. In 2022, the Partnership for Prospects also gave over half a million children in Syria’s neighbouring countries the opportunity to go to school.