Sectoral impact:
Syria ranks 6th globally in the November 2024–May 2025 Hunger Hotspot Outlook. 14.56 million people are food insecure, of whom 9.1 million are classified as acutely food insecure (including 1.3 million severely food insecure), and 5.4 million are at risk of hunger.
Soaring inflation and the depreciation of the SYP has led to a sharp rise in the cost of living, with minimum wage covering only 16 per cent of the food component of the MEB, making food unaffordable for many. Rising commodity prices exacerbate economic challenges, pushing thousands into severe food insecurity.
Environmental, economic, and social pressures have eroded resilience at both the household and community levels, making it progressively harder for populations to recover from or adapt to the escalating food insecurity. The destruction of infrastructure and widespread displacement due to the conflict has left millions without access to food, deepening the crisis.
There is an alarming deterioration of food consumption patterns and a reduction in dietary diversity as households sharply reduce access to nutritious diets. Vulnerable populations, particularly women and children, bear the brunt of food insecurity, with intra-household food allocation practices often prioritizing men, leaving women and children with limited access to nutritious food. The potential subsidy removal on bread further worsens food insecurity situation for the most vulnerable.
Dependence on foreign trade and centralized services has left the food system vulnerable to disruptions, where the local food production is unable to compete, worsened by trade restrictions, further hindering food access.
The 2024-2025 agricultural season will not meet expectations due to significant decrease in rainfall, a sharp increase in the prices of agricultural production inputs, recent conflict damaging agriculture-livelihood infrastructure, displacement during the beginning of the sowing season for winter crops, disruption to supply chains, energy deficits, and restricted land access for farmers due to conflict and EO.
Immediate needs:
- Emergency food assistance for displaced households and those in conflict areas or hosting centres, as coping mechanisms are nearing exhaustion.
- Continue assisting severely food insecure households and scale-up to those at risk of severe food insecurity.
- Access to and affordability of bread remains inconsistent across Syria, requiring supporting bakeries with raw materials or in-kind assistance to the most vulnerable households.
- Critical and time-sensitive emergency agriculture-livelihood support, including financial aid and in-kind assistance, is required to stabilize farming and livestock-keeping households that have exhausted their savings and are resorting to extreme coping mechanisms. This includes the provision of animal feed and other services to livestock-keeping households, and access to fertilizers and water to boost production.
- Conflict-sensitive rehabilitation of all damaged infrastructure, including but not limited to irrigation infrastructure, to maximise agricultural production during the summer season. This facilitates a bounce-back after a damaged winter season in the country, while promoting social cohesion.
Priority activities:
- Provide emergency food assistance through appropriate modalities to the displaced and affected 2.4 million people in need of food assistance up to 6 months in shelters and final destinations.
- Expand lifesaving, targeted food assistance to 2.9 million severely food insecure and at risk of food insecurity households across Syria, with special attention to vulnerable populations, particularly women and children. Concurrently, invest in emergency agricultural inputs for these vulnerable populations, such as fertilizers and animal feed, to support agriculture-based livelihoods and mitigate the impact of recent disruptions on farm-based economic activity in both the winter and summer seasons.
- Rehabilitate damaged infrastructure, including irrigation systems and other facilities critical for wheat, to ensure a steady supply of affordable bread and support bakeries with raw materials to protect and increase their capacity to produce affordable bread.
- Enhance stakeholder capacity to reduce food waste and loss along value chains, thereby improving overall food security.
- Promote risk- and conflict-sensitive food production, climate-resilient agricultural practices, and improve access to farming tools and irrigation systems to restore agricultural productivity.
Response strategy:
The food security and agriculture sector (FSA) aims to address the immediate food needs of vulnerable populations, enhance their self-reliance, and contribute to restoring community resilience in Syria. This includes both short-term emergency assistance and long-term strategies to improve food security.
In the short term, FSA advocates for emergency aid to displaced households and those affected by recent political changes, targeting severely food-insecure populations. CVA is prioritized in areas with functional markets. Additionally, the sector supports the provision of critical and time-sensitive emergency agricultural inputs, such as seeds, to farming communities, covering the entire agricultural value chain from production to marketing. The 2024 Food Security Assessment identified those most at risk of severe food insecurity, guiding the prioritization of food assistance. An emergency food security assessment will be conducted in Q1 2025 to adjust the response based on emerging needs.
FSA aims to continue supporting bread and bakeries by providing raw materials and improving infrastructure, continue rehabilitating irrigation systems, rebuilding agriculture-based livelihoods in conflict-sensitive ways, promoting income generation, enhancing local food production, supporting livestock production, and offering agricultural extension services.
The sector emphasizes coordination to avoid overlap, improve complementarity, and fill assistance gaps. Standardized monitoring and assessment of relief and transitions (SMART) tools will be used to track assistance and prevent duplication at the household level. FSA will collaborate with other sectors like emergency livelihoods, WASH, nutrition, and health to address interconnected needs, and coordinate with CWGs. Partnering with the GBV AoR will strengthen responses to reduce GBV risks, focusing on women and girls.
The sector prioritizes AAP, protection, gender, and inclusion, focusing on women, children, PWDs and other vulnerable groups. Interventions will address the specific needs of different genders and age groups, with a focus on female-headed households and women of reproductive age. A community feedback mechanism will ensure transparency and feed into reducing community tensions, while monitoring and evaluation will adapt programs to evolving needs. FSA is committed to PSEA, with clear reporting mechanisms and PSEA training for staff. Protection principles will be integrated into food security interventions to ensure safe, dignified assistance and address risks child protection and GBV risks.