Expanding Markets, Generating Jobs, Fostering Hope

With the Syria crisis in its fifth year, two-thirds of Syria’s GDP has been lost, and more than 80% of Syrians are living in poverty. Many refugees in neighboring countries, with limited access to sustainable livelihood options, have now entered a cycle of asset depletion, with savings gradually exhausted and increasing levels of debt. More than six million internally displaced inside Syria and more than four million Syrian refugees, plus more than 110,000 Palestinian refugees from Syria, are putting pressure on basic services in their host communities, inadvertently exacerbating social tensions across the region.

As the absorption capacity of the host communities in neighboring countries have both become overstretched, thousands are choosing the dangerous path of migration to Europe, while some are even choosing to return insecure areas of Syria.

The response to the Syrian crisis must confront the triple challenge of sustaining levels of humanitarian funding needed to cover the basic needs of most vulnerable while broadening options for sustainable livelihoods1 and selfreliance
for Syrians to preserve human capital for recovery, and scaling up efforts to strengthen resilience and promote stability in host communities of neighboring countries.