Resilience through Humanitarian Assistance: Agriculture in the Syria Conflict

Global Communities has been responding to the Syrian conflict since 2013. In that time, they have sought to address food insecurity with solutions that can potentially bridge an emergency response with more long-term, post-conflict recovery.

Between 2014 and March 2018 GC provided agricultural assistance as well as livestock and livelihoods support to a population of more than 83,000 individuals in opposition-held northwest Syria. Building on these experiences, they believe it is useful to share their perspectives, as well as those of other organizations working in this space, in an effort to answer this complex question: by thinking longer term, how can humanitarian assistance more effectively help vulnerable communities? In this case, they consider the specific challenge of providing humanitarian support to sustain local agricultural capacities in north-west Syria, even as the uncertainties and difficulties associated with the conflict continue.

Overall, this volume’s objective is to share with program designers, implementers, donors, policymakers and other interested parties, recommendations, considerations and questions on how to build on Syria’s own capacities by maintaining and strengthening its agricultural resilience, with an eye to eventual resolution of the conflict.

Informing this volume is the content gathered during interviews with more than 50 key informants from 20 different organizations working on Syrian agriculture. These interviews were gathered from organizations and individuals working in opposition-held areas of north-western Syria, not within the Syrian government-held areas nor the north-east, whose experiences will be different. The experiences of respondent organizations and individuals rely on self-reported information that has not been independently verified.