Syria: humanitarian aid in the face of a bloodless country and an uncertain future

Photo of PUI during a visit to Syria in January 2025

December 2024. The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime, after fourteen years of war, marks a major turning point for Syria. Power collapsed in a matter of days under the assault of rebel forces led by the Hayat Tahrir al-Cham (HTC) group, leaving the way open for an uncertain political transition. The establishment of an interim government, led by Ahmad al-Sharaa (Abu Mohammed al-Joulani), and the adoption of a provisional constitution in March 2025 are seen as steps forward, but they are not enough to meet the country’s immediate challenges: political instability, community and sectarian tensions, a lasting humanitarian crisis and large-scale reconstruction.

Syrians celebrated the end of the regime, but woke up a month later to an unchanged reality: a country in ruins, with no resources, and an uncertain future,’ observes Charlotte Baudoin, of the NGO Première Urgence Internationale.

On 30 March, Ahmad al-Sharaa, the interim president, announced a new Syrian transitional government composed mainly of his loyalists but including 4 ministers from minorities, a Christian, a Druze, an Alawite and a Kurd among its 23 members. The Autonomous Administration of North and East Syria (editor’s note: autonomous Syrian Kurdish authority) declared that this government did not reflect the diversity and plurality of the country and that it was therefore not concerned by the government’s decisions! It should also be remembered that Ahmad al-Sharaa has full legislative, executive and judicial powers, and that he chairs the ‘National Security Council’, considered by some to be the country’s real government. The future will tell whether the promise of a representative, unitary government that respects minorities has been kept or not. That is the challenge after 14 years of war.

In this context, humanitarian action is more necessary than ever, but its new framework for intervention is still unclear. Some had hoped that the end of the regime would facilitate access to relief supplies. However, as Thomas Janny of the NGO Solidarités International points out, guaranteed access has not yet been achieved and humanitarian space remains restricted.

To analyse the humanitarian challenges ahead, this article draws on two complementary accounts. Thomas Janny, Regional Director for the Middle East at Solidarités International, and Olivier Routeau, Director of Operations and Charlotte Baudoin, Country Director for Syria at the NGO Première Urgence Internationale (PUI). Before the fall of the regime, Solidarités International was working in rebel-controlled areas (in the north-east and north-west of the country), while Première Urgence Internationale was working in regime-controlled areas, in 10 of the country’s 14 governorates.

Between the reorganisation of the humanitarian sector, reduced funding and strong political and geopolitical tensions, post-Assad Syria raises many questions about the future of aid and the conditions under which it is delivered.

A Blitzkrieg with uncertain consequences

The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime was as sudden as it was unexpected, a veritable Blitzkrieg, as Thomas Janny puts it. In the space of ten days, HTS forces, supported by numerous other militias, took control of the capital, causing the total collapse of a regime that had held out for fourteen years with the support of Iran and Shiite militias, as well as Russia. This rapid changeover left the country without a functional state structure, with an improvised transitional government and an administration in ruins.

Interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa is seeking to stabilise the situation, notably by adopting an interim constitution in March 2025. This constitution guarantees certain fundamental freedoms, notably in terms of expression and women’s rights, but it maintains a powerful executive with few checks and balances. Although there have been declarations aimed at establishing a democratic framework, the foundations remain extremely fragile,’ explains Olivier Routeau of Première Urgence Internationale. The absence of solid structures and the lack of resources are complicating the establishment of a stable state, while the population sees few concrete improvements in their daily lives.

Nor has the collapse of the regime put an end to the violence. In the first few weeks, clashes broke out on the Syrian coast, particularly in Tartous and Latakia, historic bastions of the Alawite community. This violence, which caused more than 1,300 deaths (many of them civilians), rekindled the community and religious tensions that had characterised the Syrian conflict. There is a real danger of widespread reprisals against the Alawites, who are seen as Assad’s historical supporters,’ warns Charlotte Baudoin, from PUI. Many are fleeing to Lebanon, while the new authorities are struggling to impose their control over the security forces, who are implicated in these abuses.

At the same time, Syria remains a battleground for geopolitical rivalries. Turkey, sponsor of the new government, is concerned about the maintenance of Kurdish power in the north-east, and has stepped up its air strikes, targeting areas under the control of the Syrian Democratic Forces (FDS). Israel, for its part, has stepped up its strikes on Syrian military sites. The fall of Assad has not put an end to foreign interests in Syria; on the contrary, it has redistributed the cards,’ analyses Thomas Janny. We might even say that Turkey has replaced Iran in Syria.

In this chaotic context, the reconstruction of the country seems out of reach in the short term. At the Brussels summit on 19 March, international donors pledged $6.5 billion, a limited amount compared with the $400 billion needed for reconstruction. In addition, US sanctions remain in place, hampering the necessary investment and slowing down any attempt at economic recovery. The European Union has lifted some restrictions, notably on the energy sector, but their impact remains limited. Without the lifting of US sanctions, Syrian recovery is impossible’, notes Olivier Routeau.

For the NGOs working on the ground, this transition period represents a major challenge. The end of the regime has turned the organisation of humanitarian aid upside down, raising new questions about access to populations and cooperation with the new authorities. While Syria has immense needs in terms of aid and reconstruction, humanitarian aid workers have to deal with an unstable environment and a future that is still uncertain.

Opening pipes to the water network in a camp in northern Syria © Solidarités International

Minorities in Syria: between fragile integration and persistent tensions

The rapid fall of the Assad regime has reshuffled the cards of power in Syria, but it has not put an end to community divisions. While the transitional government claims to want to build an inclusive nation, religious and ethnic tensions are a reality that the new government must resolve. Minorities, historically caught up in the conflict, now find themselves in an uncertain position, between fears of reprisals and promises of integration.

The Alawites, long seen as the mainstay of the Assad regime, are now the most vulnerable. In Tartous and Latakia, atrocities targeted the community from the very first days of the transition, killing more than 1,300 people. The government has condemned the violence, but probably does not have the means to prosecute these crimes,’ observes Charlotte Baudoin of Première Urgence Internationale. Weakened by years of war and impunity, the Syrian judicial system seems incapable of fulfilling its role for the time being.

The Kurds, for their part, gained political recognition with the agreement of 10 March, which provides for the integration of the FDS into the national army. This agreement, which enshrines the place of the Kurds in the new Syria, is nevertheless fragile. Tensions persist between Kurdish units, former jihadists and pro-Turkish mercenaries. It will be difficult to unify these forces under a single structure,’ stresses Charlotte Baudoin. Moreover, this agreement has not prevented Turkey from continuing its strikes in north-eastern Syria, a sign that Damascus’ recognition of the Kurds does not mean an end to the bombing and fighting, which could resume at any time.

For the Druze, the transition raises as many hopes as concerns. Their religious leader, Hikmat al-Hajri, has publicly criticised the new government’s constitutional declaration as being too centralised and unrepresentative of Syria’s diversity. The question of autonomy, granted to them under Assad as part of the ‘Alliance of Minorities’, remains unresolved. In a country where community balances are still unstable, the challenge will be to guarantee a system where each group finds its place without stirring up resentment.

This situation makes access for humanitarian aid particularly delicate. For Solidarités International, which has been operating in areas that were not held by the Assad regime, since the beginning of its work, the displacement of populations and the new humanitarian needs represent a major challenge. During the HTS offensive towards Damascus, our teams on the ground witnessed massive displacements of Kurdish populations towards the north-east, where they had to put in place an emergency response in just a few days’, explains Thomas Janny. PUI, which was initially present in the government zone, is also emphasising the need for reconstruction to include all minorities in order to avoid further fractures.

United Nations (UN). (2025). Humanitarian Response Priorities: January – March 2025 – Syrian Arab Republic. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) [2]

Uncertain humanitarian access

Humanitarian needs in Syria

16.5 million people require humanitarian aid.
14.56 million people are food insecure, of whom 9.1 million are classified as acutely food insecure (including 1.3 million in a severe situation).
8 million internally displaced persons (IDPs) since 2011.
823,302 people newly displaced in 2024, of whom 522,600 returned in December alone.
Nearly 6.5 million people have fled Syria since the start of the civil war, including: more than 3 million to Turkey, around 784,000 to Lebanon, more than 705,000 to Germany, and almost 650,000 to Jordan.

Figures from the OCHA 2025 report on humanitarian needs in Syria[1].

Humanitarian aid budget in 2024

In 2024, the United Nations has estimated the aid budget required at 4.07 billion dollars.
At the end of the year, only 1.46 billion dollars (or 35.9%) had been raised.

Humanitarian Action 2024 figures[2]

The fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime has opened up new prospects for humanitarian action in Syria. NGOs have been able to access previously unreachable areas from their respective zones of operation before the overthrow of the regime.

However, this opening has been accompanied by new administrative and logistical constraints. As the legal framework is not yet well defined, the potential implementation of new programmes remains compromised for the time being. According to Thomas Janny, the authorities are still hesitant about the relationship they wish to maintain with international NGOs (INGOs) and the freedom they will be granted. In addition, the security situation remains unstable: bombardments persist in certain regions of the north-east, and further atrocities cannot be ruled out. The humanitarian situation has continued to deteriorate,’ notes Charlotte Baudoin, ’Israeli air strikes have intensified, while ongoing hostilities in the north and south, as well as recent instability and the deteriorating situation in coastal areas, have worsened humanitarian conditions and increased protection concerns.

Another major challenge is the gradual return of refugees, estimated at 125,000 since the fall of the regime. According to the United Nations, nearly 6.5 million people have fled Syria since the start of the civil war, with a further 8 million internally displaced. These returns raise questions about access to basic services for people who return to their villages in ruins after years of exile, and about the capacity of NGOs to respond to new needs. In a context where funding is uncertain and infrastructures are still fragile, humanitarian organisations must find sustainable solutions to support this transition.

The humanitarian sector absolutely must succeed in this first phase of emergency response, to enable Syria to move on to the next stage, that of reconstruction’, explains Olivier Routeau.

International support and financial uncertainties: a delicate balance

The role of the international community is now crucial to Syria’s recovery. Since the fall of the regime, several governments and multilateral organisations have announced plans to support reconstruction, emphasising the need for inclusive development and political stabilisation. The European Union, for example, has reaffirmed its commitment to a peaceful and sustainable transition, while institutions such as the World Bank are beginning to consider recovery projects.

This international support is essential to rehabilitate destroyed infrastructure, support basic services and encourage the return of displaced persons and refugees. Olivier Routeau stresses that without a strong commitment from international donors, local capacities will remain too limited to meet the immense humanitarian and reconstruction needs. This support should enable us to move away from an emergency approach and lay the foundations for more sustainable aid.

However, this dynamic has been disrupted by a reorganisation of humanitarian funding. The sudden freezing of American funds, which via the USAID agency amounted to a total annual budget of 42.8 billion dollars (42% of global humanitarian aid), has created major uncertainty for NGOs on the ground. American aid to Syria represented around a quarter of donations to the humanitarian response plan in 2024, i.e. 377.7 million dollars [3]. The suspension of funding has forced many organisations to drastically reduce their operations or even withdraw from certain areas.

Faced with these restrictions, humanitarian actors are having to reassess their funding strategies, and are looking to diversify their sources. However, this decision by the new Trump administration is part of a more general trend of reduced funding for international aid. Cuts in the Official Development Assistance (ODA) budgets of several European countries, including France, are giving rise to great concern and imposing a very short-term approach.

In this uncertain context, coordination between humanitarian and development aid is essential. We must avoid a humanitarian vacuum that would leave millions of Syrians without support at a critical time’, insists Olivier Routeau. Finally, the lifting of the remaining sanctions appears to be a necessary condition to facilitate economic recovery and enable humanitarian actors to work more effectively on the ground.

An unpredictable future, an essential commitment

As Syria enters a new phase in its history, the humanitarian challenges are immense. While the fall of the regime has opened up certain prospects, it has also left a devastated country, where humanitarian emergencies go hand in hand with the need for reconstruction.

International support will be crucial if another disaster is to be avoided. But with funding falling and instability on the ground, NGOs are struggling to adapt. The lifting of the remaining sanctions, better humanitarian coordination and appropriate funding will be essential to support Syria in the long term, if it is to stabilise and not fall back into conflict.

[1] Syrian Arab Republic Humanitarian Response Plan 2024 | Financial Tracking Service

[2] United Nations (UN). (2025). Humanitarian Response Priorities: January – March 2025 – Syrian Arab Republic. Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA).

[3] Humanitarian action, Syrian Arab Republic, 2024. Financials | Humanitarian Action

India Hauteville

India Hauteville holds a first Masters degree in International Politics from Sciences Po Bordeaux and is currently studying for a Masters degree in Integration and Change in the Mediterranean and Middle East at Sciences Po Grenoble. She is currently assistant to the founder of Solidarités International, Mr. Alain Boinet.

Particularly interested in the Syrian conflict, she is currently writing a thesis on the articulation between humanitarian principles and the realities on the ground in Syria, using the NGO Solidarités International as a case study.

I invite you to read these interviews and articles published in the edition :

Drinking water and sanitation : How long will it take to achieve the targets?

An article by Gérard Payen, Vice-President of the French Water Partnership (FWP) and former water adviser to the UN Secretary-General.

In 2015, the unanimous adoption of the Agenda 2030 and its Global Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) finally provided humanity with a number of ambitious projects for drinking water and sanitation. As far as drinking water is concerned, we are aiming for universal access to uncontaminated water that is easily accessible and available every day at an affordable cost, in order to make this human right a reality. For sanitation, we also have a goal of universal access: to ensure that everyone has decent toilets that pose no health risk, with proper disposal of human waste, another right. But we also want to protect ourselves: to protect our neighbours, others and the environment, from all forms of water pollution caused by human activities.

Our ambition is to reduce by 50% the amount of wastewater discharged into the environment without treatment. These global objectives are described in detail in SDG targets 6.1, 6.2 and 6.3, with particular attention paid to poor people in target 1.4 and slum dwellers in target 11.1. They are ambitious, but unfortunately they correspond to very real and significant needs.

Significant progress in access…

The adoption of the global MDG programme has greatly improved our knowledge of needs. A huge effort has been made by statisticians at the UN and in all countries to design relevant indicators to monitor progress towards the global goals. Although still limited, the new statistical knowledge represents major progress. For objectives whose evolution over time has already been estimated, the players can no longer be satisfied with fine speeches about what they are doing and the resulting progress. They are now faced with the reality of needs.

When it comes to people’s access to drinking water and sanitation in their homes, we now have solid estimates of current needs and trends since 2015 at global level, by major region, and for many countries. On average, progress is clear: between 2015 and 2022, almost 700 million people will have gained satisfactory access to uncontaminated water.

As for access to basic sanitation, i.e. hygienic, dignified and non-collective toilets, the gains are even greater: 1 billion since 2015. These advances should be compared with needs, which are steadily increasing as a result of demographic, urban and economic growth, as well as rising living standards. The 550 million increase in the world’s population over the same period reduces the scale of progress towards universal access, i.e. the reduction in needs (see graph below).

… but targets far from met

Progress on drinking water is very slow, far too slow, with 2.2 billion people still using water that is probably contaminated, three times as many as without electricity. If this rate of progress were to continue, hundreds of millions of people would be without drinking water in the next century, even though universal access was planned for 2030. Over the period 2015-2022, the reduction in access needs was four times slower for drinking water than for basic sanitation, while access to electricity improved five times faster. In other words, policies for access to drinking water are far less effective than policies for access to sanitation and electricity.

If we take a closer look at the trends, we can see that prolonging current trends for drinking water would in no way solve the needs. In fact, needs are increasing rather than decreasing in two very large populations: the urbanised half of the planet and sub-Saharan Africa (see figure below).

These setbacks [1] make it mathematically impossible to achieve the global goal of universal access to drinking water. The number of people lacking basic sanitation is also rising in sub-Saharan Africa. On the other hand, sanitation is slowly improving in the urban half of the world.

Insufficient results in education and health.

The WHO and UNICEF have recently produced global statistics showing the extent of the shortage of drinking water and toilets in schools and, even worse, in healthcare establishments, despite the fact that non-contamination of water and by water is a major factor in health. On average, only three quarters of schools worldwide (and almost half of those in the poorest quarter of the world) have permanent access to clear water (although it is not guaranteed to be potable) for drinking, washing hands or cleaning; 8% have water facilities, but the water does not flow every day, and 15% have only water that is potentially contaminated by animals.

The situation is similar for toilets: only 78% of schools have proper, separate toilets for girls and boys, 11% have only single-sex toilets and 11% have no hygienic closed toilets. Inadequate sanitation is therefore an obstacle to the schooling of almost one girl in four. Fortunately, the situation seems to be improving: in eight years, the need for drinking water or sanitation has been reduced by around 28%.

The problems are similar for health establishments: in 2022, only 84% of hospitals and 80% of smaller health establishments had permanent access to clear water (of unknown potability) for drinking, treatment and cleaning. In 2021, 850 million patients went to a healthcare facility without water, and the same number to facilities whose water was potentially contaminated by animals. The total number of these patients without sufficient water is increasing by around 1% per year.

As for toilets, there is not enough data to give a global picture. But we do know that only 30% of facilities in Latin America and 22% of facilities in sub-Saharan Africa have functional, hygienic toilets that are separated by sex.

A tanker truck supplies water to an unconnected neighbourhood in Delhi (India) © C.GUILLAIS

Too little attention paid to cleaning up water after use

Until very recently, there was no global data on pollution discharges. In 2015, the objective of halving the flow of wastewater discharged without treatment was adopted, and after several years this has finally made it possible to establish statistical data. It is estimated that the global proportion of domestic wastewater discharged into the environment without proper treatment will be 42% in 2022.

But in the absence of a comparable estimate for an earlier date, we will have to wait another two or three years to find out whether the global total is increasing or decreasing. We do know, however, that the very high number of people without ‘safely managed’ sanitation, i.e. without minimal decontamination or non-contaminating storage, is slowly falling (-9% in seven years).

As for pollution discharged by industry, the data from individual countries is still too incomplete to permit a global estimate. We therefore do not know whether the world is progressing or falling behind on its SDG 6.3 target for reducing pollution discharges. It should also be noted that the indicators chosen for SDG targets 6.6 and 14.1 are insufficient to measure the impact of discharges on water and marine ecosystems.

Basic sanitation private hygienic closed toilets ©G. PAYEN

Doing more and doing it faster

The world has finally set ambitious targets for access to drinking water, access to sanitation and controlling pollution from wastewater. This has greatly improved our global knowledge of these issues. But this new information does not show any change in the pace of achievement after 2015. Worse still, it shows setbacks for several parts of the world’s population. If current trends were to continue unchanged, there would still be billions of people, over several generations, without access to drinking water or sanitation. When it comes to controlling pollution, it is also clear that the objective has no chance of being achieved.

Today, most of the various players are doing what they can with their respective resources and constraints. Many very positive projects are being launched, by public authorities, financial institutions, economic players, NGOs and local communities. But taken as a whole, these many initiatives are not enough. If the huge gaps between objectives and reality are narrowing only slowly, or even increasing, it is not because of inaction, but because the rate of progress is lower than the rate of growth in needs. The collective global challenge is clear: we need to do more, faster. We need to move from a world where the many stakeholders in the water sector are satisfied with a job well done, to a world where the scale of the drinking water and sanitation challenges is effectively addressed [2].

A political leap forward is needed. For the past four years, UN-Water has been alerting all governments to the need to speed up public water and sanitation policies, but so far without any convincing effect. This is no easy task, as it calls into question many habits and political balances. Even France has some progress to make. This century, governments have only met once at the UN to discuss all their water problems. That was in March 2023. They recognised a global crisis but failed to commit to any action. They will meet again in December 2026, this time to discuss the implementation of their objectives, those mentioned above. New statistical knowledge will objectify the situation and render meaningless the declarations of good intentions that ignore them. Will governments finally decide to adapt their actions to their common objectives?

[1] ‘Eau potable : que nous apprennent les statistiques mondiales au-delà des rapports officiels ?’, Gérard Payen, Défis humanitaires #86 (February 2024).

[2] ‘Le défi mondial de l’eau potable et de l’assainissement : faire davantage et plus vite’, Gérard Payen, AFD Proparco, ‘Secteur privé & développement’ #42, November 2024.

TO GO FURTHER

– The numerical data on the various accesses are extracted or calculated by the author from reports and the database available on the WHO-Unicef website http://www.washdata.org.

– For wastewater, the reference report is Progress on Wastewater Treatment – 2024 Update, WHO-Habitat, UN-Water.

– Gérard Payen, ‘Accès à l’eau potable : le changement majeur d’objectif mondial en 2015 se heurt à des habitudes technocratiques tenaces’, in Défis Humanitaires, March 2023.

We would like to thank the Revue des ponts, des eaux et des forêts and the graduates of the Ecole nationale des Ponts et Chaussées for permission to republish in Défis Humanitaires this article by Gérard Payen, which appeared in PCM 919 in December 2024.

Water, a common good – Understanding planetary cycles

Review (Integration)

Gérard Payen.

Gérard Payen has been working for over 35 years to solve water-related problems in all countries. As Water Adviser to the Secretary General of the United Nations (member of UNSGAB) from 2004 to 2015, he contributed to the recognition of the Human Rights to safe drinking water and sanitation, as well as to the adoption of the numerous water-related targets of the global Sustainable Development Goals. Today, he continues to work to mobilise the international community for better management of water-related problems, which requires more ambitious public policies. Vice-president of the French Water Partnership, he also advises the United Nations agencies that produce global water statistics. Impressed by the number of misconceptions about the nature of water-related problems, ideas that hamper public authorities in their decision-making, he published a book in 2013 to dismantle these preconceptions.

I invite you to read these interviews and articles published in the edition :

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