Summary of needs
An estimated 13.3 million people across Syria remain food insecure, with 7.2 million acutely food insecure, of whom 0.7 million are severely food insecure, according to the 2025 Food Security Assessment (FSA). Despite the improvement and projected reduction of total PiN in 2026 (13.3 million) compared to 2025 (14.5 million), the situation remains fragile with around 6.2 million people estimated to be at risk of falling into food insecurity in 2026 (an increase from 5.4 million in 2025) amidst continued instability, sharp funding decline, impacts of a year of severe drought, and economic hardship impacting the most vulnerable groups.
During 2025, more than one and a half million former refugees and IDPs returned to their areas of origin. However, due to security episodes across Syria, largescale displacement took place. These movements further strained the capacity of humanitarian actors, markets, and local governments as they responded to competing emergency priorities. The latter emergencies were coupled with a lack of basic services and infrastructure at a time when humanitarian, early recovery, and development initiatives were shrinking.
According to the FSA, food insecurity remains widespread and uneven, with higher rates among displaced populations and camp residents, where 47.5 per cent of households are acutely food insecure. Vulnerable groups, including femaleheaded households (37.9 per cent), and households with persons with disabilities (41.4 per cent) all continue to face disproportionate challenges. While progress has been recorded, millions of families remain unable to meet their basic food needs without regular humanitarian support in the form of food and agricultural assistance.
FSAL reported a significant increase in subdistricts facing high food insecurity in 2025. This deterioration is largely driven by persistent challenges, most critically the severe water scarcity and the unprecedented drought of 2025, the worst drought in nearly 40 years (FAO Drought Alert June 2025). This drought period affected over 75 per cent of cultivated crops and grazing areas, causing catastrophic losses in rainfed wheat and barley areas (over 95 per cent), a significant decline in irrigated crop yields, a 100–300 per cent rise in animal feed prices, and a 40 per cent drop in livestock numbers, deterioration in the health and nutritional status of animals, the spread of diseases, with high mortality rates among newborns. The combined effects of drought, reduced irrigation functionality, rising input costs and constrained public financing have transformed food insecurity from a primarily household-level vulnerability into a systemic food systems risk. Without sustained humanitarian and early recovery support, localised shocks risk cascading into broader market instability and increased fiscal pressure on food subsidy systems. As such, emergency agricultural assistance protects and restores essential food production assets-through timely provision of seeds, livestock feed, animal health support, along with irrigation rehabilitation and other input subsidies-enabling vulnerable households to sustain their own food access, stabilize local markets, and prevent further erosion of livelihoods amid systemic shocks.
Syria’s bread and bakery value chain has seen significant investment in 2025, yet it continues to face mounting challenges as demand outstrips resources. Despite rehabilitation and maintenance efforts of key bread value chain infrastructure in 2025, funding shortages, high operational costs, low wages, fuel scarcity, and limited electricity continue to constrain production. Wheat flour shortages have impacted subsidized bread prices; therefore, humanitarian partners in coordination with national institutions, continued supporting the provision of fortified wheat flour and key operational inputs to stabilize the subsidized bread system which remains a critical social protection and macroeconomic stabilizer for vulnerable households.
The irrigation and drainage systems are not faring any better, due to the destruction and damage sustained during the 14 years of crisis, in addition to limited institutional capacity and financing constraints over the years of crisis have affected the ability to conduct routine maintenance throughout the years of the crisis. Although substantial investment has been made in the rehabilitation of irrigation systems over the years, many still require rehabilitation.
Improved economic conditions, and sustained assistance have contributed to improving the food security situation, as recorded by the 2025 FSA. There are some positive signs in Syria; market conditions in 2025 show moderate yet encouraging improvements in household economic well-being. By December 2025, the Minimum Expenditure Basket (MEB) fell to 2.2 million SYP, a 25 per cent decrease from the previous year (2024). Although some prices remain unstable, families found it slightly easier to meet basic needs, supported by a 34 per cent rise in the official minimum wage. Market availability also generally improved, which enhanced access to essential goods. Late-2025 rainfall further raised hopes for better crop and pasture conditions, depending on favorable rain distribution in 2026.
However, with high needs and an uncertain 2026 funding outlook already affecting both regular food assistance and agriculture-livelihood programmes across Syria, the prospect for the most vulnerable households and those at risk of food insecurity could worsen further if not addressed. Continued support for (a) food assistance, (b) emergency agriculture livelihood interventions, (c) agriculture recovery and restoration of productive capacities, (d) essential economic infrastructure and services is vital to consolidate gains and ensure that recovery reaches those still left behind.
Response strategy
The FSAL sector 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 medium-term strategies to improve food security. The prerequisite for the above action is the facilitating of a systematic process to generate timely and evidence–based data and analysis, to inform the targeted sector response. FSAL will strengthen anticipatory action mechanisms by linking seasonal forecasts, drought early warning indicators, displacement tracking and market monitoring systems to predefined trigger thresholds that allow for early release of emergency agricultural inputs and pre-emptive scale-up of food assistance.
In the short-term, FSAL advocates that all life-saving and life-sustaining activities be addressed, that is, both food and emergency agriculture. The sector advocates targeted and regular food assistance and provision of critical and time-sensitive emergency agricultural inputs to support agriculture production for acutely food-insecure households, among crisis affected people, including IDPs, returnees, and residents. FSAL ensures social cohesion and integration into all sector activities based on vulnerabilities, with cash and voucher assistance prioritised in areas of functional markets.
As a medium-term approach, FSAL aims to strengthen resilience of households and communities, including through supporting the bread-value chain, the seed multiplication and livestock breeding systems, rehabilitating irrigation systems, mills, silos, and bakeries while also providing the latter facilities with necessary inputs for daily function. FSAL also promotes income generation from local food production, and market access by supporting vegetable gardening, livestock production, poultry, and fisheries, along the entire value chain, and by rebuilding vital agricultural services such as extension services, and early warning and monitoring systems.
Key priority activities:
- Integrated emergency assistance: Immediate and continued life and livelihood saving and sustaining emergency assistance is crucial for acutely food insecure households, displaced populations, and those in hosting areas. This includes food assistance, targeted support for the bread and bakery sector, through the provision of raw materials, and critical and time-sensitive agricultural assistance such as seeds, fertilizers, animal feed, veterinary drugs and vaccines, emergency water for production to farming communities, and land rehabilitation to prevent further deterioration of food security.
- Support for food systems: Timely rehabilitation of essential infrastructure, including bread-value chain infrastructure, seed multiplication facilities, irrigation systems, mills and silos, is vital to enhance access to bread, strengthen agricultural production, and ensure a stable food supply. This support must focus on vulnerable populations, particularly in drought-affected areas, to safeguard upcoming planting seasons and mitigate economic hardship as well as displaced population and returnees with little access to services and livelihood.
- Rehabilitation of damaged assets and land: This is essential to strengthen food systems and promote social cohesion. This includes addressing issues such as CWG and enhancing water resources for herders, which are critical for restoring agricultural productivity.
- Evidence-based programming and strategic investment: There is a pressing need for quality, evidence-based data to inform emergency and recovery programming. Investing in a Humanitarian- Development-Peace nexus will facilitate improvements in food production, mainstream Disaster Risk Reduction approaches, including climate-smart agricultural practices, and access to necessary farming tools, equipment, and assets, ultimately supporting long-term food security and resilience.
Targeting & prioritization
From the total FSAL PiN of approximately 13.3 million, an overall target of approximately 5 million people was identified by applying the higher value of food assistance target and the critical and time-sensitive emergency agricultural target at the sub-district level. Food assistance targets approximately 4 million individuals, including 100 per cent of the severely food-insecure and 50 per cent of the moderately food-insecure, using thresholds similarly applied in previous years. Following a compatible approach to the previous methodology for emergency agriculture, FSAL targets a similar figure of approximately 4 million people (around 660,000 households). Final operational targets will remain contingent on funding availability, access conditions and updated needs assessments throughout 2026, with periodic review through inter-sector coordination mechanisms.
For prioritisation purposes, FSAL will target the food insecure people in sub-districts with inter-sectoral severity four using same approaches as above for a total target of 2.1 million people at the subnational level that need both food assistance and emergency agriculture interventions.
Promoting accountable, quality & inclusive programming
FSAL will collaborate with key sectors, particularly Nutrition, Protection, and the CWG, to strengthen joint efforts, harmonize guidance, standardize processes for linked activities, roll out safe referral pathways, review MEB components and transfer values, and support de-duplication. The FSAL sector emphasizes coordination at all levels to avoid overlap, improve complementarity, and strongly encourages partners to adopt the use of household deduplication platforms such as Building Blocks. The sector will also advocate with Protection partners on EO-related issues to ensure safer access in areas of return.
FSAL prioritises AAP, protection, gender, and inclusion, ensuring that the needs of women, children, persons with disabilities, and other vulnerable groups are addressed. Interventions will promote women’s participation in food security programs and provide targeted assistance to FHHs and at-risk groups to support recovery and self-reliance.
To enhance community engagement and transparency, FSAL will establish robust feedback mechanisms and safe identification and referral processes. The sector remains committed to PSEA through clear reporting channels and capacity building, while applying “do no harm” principles to ensure safe, dignified, and protection-sensitive assistance while addressing risks related to child protection and GBV.
Cost of response
Starting from the overall target, FSAL utilized the reach figures from previous years to drive the FSAL Logical Framework to limited targets across various activities. These targets are then multiplied by the cost of each activity. Technical Working Groups provided the cost range of each activity based on recent market analysis and research. Costing follows the same approach used consistently during the past years.
Humanitarian outlook and risks:
Key monitoring mechanisms in 2026 will include the annual FSA, seasonal agricultural assessments, continuous market price monitoring, displacement tracking systems, rainfall and vegetation index monitoring (NDVI) and FAO drought alerts. Assessments will be coordinated through the Assessment Working Group to ensure harmonized methodologies, data sharing and evidence-based prioritisation.
In the context of Syria, the need for life and livelihoods saving emergency food assistance and emergency agriculture inputs is critical. Pre-positioned food assistance, and potential inclusion of short cycle food production and animal feed, can be essential to ensure rapid response capabilities in the event of escalated violence or humanitarian crises. By strategically stockpiling supplies in accessible locations, aid organizations can swiftly deliver support to affected populations, mitigating the risk of widespread malnutrition and food insecurity. This proactive approach not only addresses immediate needs but also strengthens the resilience of communities facing the uncertainties of conflict. Pre-agreed operational triggers linked to climatic forecasts and displacement indicators will guide early action and anticipatory responses to mitigate food security deterioration before peak crisis periods.
Risks from climate-induced disasters impacting agricultural communities in Syria are real. In recent years, the frequency of extreme weather events has increased, significantly impacting farming and livestock production. Almost every year, one or more events had their mark on arable land, forests, pastures, and essential infrastructure related to agriculture. Sudden and slow onset natural disasters and hazards (wildfires, flooding, frost, drought, earthquakes, etc.) can cause short-term and long-term damage to agriculture production and productivity, including soil erosion, reduced water availability, that is heavily and negatively impacting food security. These conditions also result in higher mortality rates among animals, which are vital for food security and nutrition, and livelihoods in Syria. The overall impact extends beyond agricultural losses, threatening socio-economic stability, and increasing poverty and migration.
To enhance the resilience to climate shocks among farming communities, key interventions include (i) improving climate monitoring and early warning systems at the national and local levels, (ii) investing in sustainable agricultural practices like droughtresistant crops, climate-smart, livestock management, etc. Finally, (iii) developing community-based disaster risk reduction strategies is essential for empowering farmers to adapt to ongoing climate challenges and mitigate the effects of climate-induced disasters.