Syria’s economy continues to face high inflation, weakened purchasing power, and persistent liquidity shortages after years of conflict. Rising prices for essential goods driven by currency depreciation, localised supply disruptions, and fluctuating import costs have deepened affordability challenges for basic needs. The recent WFP VAM price monitoring indicates that key components of the Minimum Expenditure Basket (MEB) increased by six per cent in January, further widening the expenditure gap for households already facing prolonged financial strain. This underscores the urgency of scaling up Multi-Purpose Cash Assistance (MPCA) coverage and adjusting transfer values to preserve assistance adequacy.
Overview-MPCA strategy 2026
The 2025 operational footprint informs the 2026 planning, with MPCA planning to reach about 1.6 million people, requiring a funding envelope of $183 million representing a 26 per cent increase compared to 2025.
The MPCA 2026 HRP will employ a mix of approaches including:
- Regular MPCA: primary modality, providing predictable assistance to cover basic minimum expenditure gaps for vulnerable households and acts as an entry point for harmonized referral pathways and potential transition to longer term solutions such as social protection.
- Emergency MPCA: short‑term, shock‑responsive assistance to cover basic minimum expenditure costs for households affected by localised crises.
Group cash transfers (GCT): A new MPCA approach for Syria in 2026, enabling community‑level responses to collective immediate needs inaccessible areas. This approach contributes to localisation efforts by channeling support through community structures and responding to priority communal gaps identified through participatory processes.
The strategy emphasizes scalability, harmonization across partners, preparedness and cash readiness, linkages with durable solutions, and alignment with inter‑sectoral response priorities.
MPCA targeting
The 2026 HRP targeting approach applies a needs‑based methodology aligned with the inter‑sectoral severity scale, prioritising households experiencing the highest levels of deprivation. Fifteen percent (15 per cent) of the intersectoral target is allocated to Severity 4 households, reflecting acute, multi‑dimensional vulnerability. Within this group, the MPCA activity mix comprises regular MPCA (75 per cent), emergency MPCA (20 per cent), and GCT (five per cent), ensuring predictable support for essential expenditures while maintaining response capacity for sudden shocks and collective community needs.
Ten percent (10 per cent) of the intersectoral target is allocated to Severity 3 households, who face moderate but still significant constraints, including recent returnees expected to re-establish basic household functionality in relatively stable areas. Assistance for HHs in severity 3 is delivered through Regular MPCA (80 per cent) and Emergency MPCA (20 per cent).
The proposed MPCA caseload reflects a 28 per cent increase compared to 2025. This expansion is driven by evolving macro‑financial conditions, including the Central Bank of Syria’s commitments to improving liquidity and stabilizing the exchange rate.
Markets and financial service feasibility
MPCA delivery will continue through a network of Financial Service Providers, supported by the CWG’s ongoing mapping, coverage reviews, and liquidity monitoring. The Central Bank’s introduction of new SYP banknotes and the gradual shift toward mandatory SYP disbursements require close monitoring of cash‑out liquidity, as replenishment timelines and the distribution of new notes remain uncertain. Steps by the Central Bank to expand digital payment options including agreements with VISA and Mastercard signals, a gradual move toward modernizing Syria’s financial ecosystem and increasing the feasibility of diversified cash delivery mechanisms, pending regulatory guidance.
Despite financial system constraints, markets in most areas remain functional, with consistent availability of MEB items confirmed through WFP VAM monitoring and REACH assessments. Localised price variability driven by multi‑currency use and uneven import access reinforces the need for location‑specific MPCA thresholds although overtime, the availability of new SYP banknotes may help stabilize liquidity and reduce reliance on multiple currencies in some markets. Overall, MPCA remains feasible, appropriate and scalable helping households manage price volatility and stimulate local markets, including in return areas with high re‑establishment costs.
Transfer value and adjustments for 2026
The current HNRP planning targets are based on the existing transfer values $100 per month for 6–8 months for Regular MPCA and $150 per month for up to 3 months for Emergency MPCA and will be revised once the updated S/MEB is finalized and endorsed through the CWG.
The CWG is revising the survival and minimum Expenditure Baskets S/MEB for 2026 to reflect current consumption patterns, updated price dynamics, and more precise distinctions. The revised guidance will differentiate between the Survival MEB (SMEB) used for Emergency MPCA and the standard MEB used for Regular MPCA. GCT will serve as a rapid communitylevel response modality, designed to address immediate, collective needs rather than household level consumption requirements.
Coordination
The CWG remains the main coordination body for MPCA and GCT, providing technical support to sectors and working closely with subnational CWG coordinators who lead emergency MPCA operations. To reduce overlap, the CWG applies an interagency deduplication system, where a Joint deduplication guidance exists with the FSAL sector, with plans to expand it across other sectors, alongside continued strengthening of 4Ws reporting and data harmonization.
The revised MEB guidance will support coordination and advocacy efforts within the ISCG for expanded MPCA/CVA coverage and harmonized transfer values in 2026, supporting referral pathways toward social protection and durable solutions as a graduation step from MPCAs.
Linkages with Social Protection systems:
Although Syria lacks a unified national social protection system, early initiatives and policy discussions are emerging across different actors. In 2026, the CWG will pursue light, appropriate engagement with these developments to ensure MPCA is positioned within broader systems‑level thinking while maintaining the independence of humanitarian assistance.
Building on lessons from other contexts, the CWG will focus on practical areas of convergence, including but not limited to: contributing to dialogue with actors exploring the foundations of future social protection mechanisms such as harmonized targeting and vulnerability parameters, transfer values and delivery options, engaging in regional and global learning spaces to adapt practical roadmap to facilitate MPCA-social protection linkages, and supporting partners to understand where humanitarian cash may complement evolving social protection efforts over time.
Cash requirements by modality
Cash programming requirements
