Expertise France en Syrie

Context

Thirteen years since the beginning of the Syrian conflict, communities, both within and outside the country, continue to bear the brunt of the crisis. Hostilities have claimed thousands of lives, leaving more than, as of February 2024, 16.7 million of people in need of humanitarian assistance, and forcing millions to flee their homes.

While livelihoods continue to be severely disrupted as a result of the conflict, human capital has also been impacted, with increased injuries, disabilities, displacements and a significant brain drain. This directly affects vulnerable communities’ access to essential services, including health. This is compounded by the fact that training opportunities for service providers are scarce, creating pressing needs in terms of skills development. 

While providing emergency humanitarian relief during protracted crisis remains necessary to alleviate suffering, more sustainable approaches are also required to improve vulnerable populations’ livelihoods, but also to enhance and sustain their access to more resilient essential services.

Expertise France, the French public agency for international cooperation, has been working in Syria since 2013 within the framework of stabilization programs, focusing on regions outside of direct control from the Syrian regime. In line with the humanitarian-development nexus, Expertise France’s action seeks to create the conditions for a sustainable end to the crisis. The overall objective of Expertise France’s program in Syria is to strengthen human security and affected communities’ resilience by improving livelihoods and preparedness. Expertise France’s interventions are also designed to facilitate the peaceful and voluntary return, as well as sustainable reintegration, of formerly displaced communities.

Expertise France’s approach in Syria:

• Providing diect support to Syrian populations
• Working with trusted local implementing partners
• Developing local actors’ capacities
• Monitoring systems with field teams on the ground

Expertise France’s interventions are based on three mutually-reinforcing pillars:

• Strengthening vulnerable communities’ access to essential services (i.e. health,
• education, electricity and water, waste management).
• Supporting economic recovery, access to employment, vocational training and sustainable
• livelihoods, with a specific focus on food security and agriculture.
• Strengthening the Syrian local civil society to be more resilient and better prevent conflicts.
• Contributing to health recovery system in the northeast of Syria through service provision and increasing the capacity of health workers.

Since 2013, Expertise France has implemented 17 projects in areas outside the control of the Syrian regime, with support from the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs and international donors such as the European Union (EU), UK Foreign, Commomwealth and Development Office (FCDO) or Global Affairs Canada (GAC).

As a French public agency, Expertise France benefitted more specifically from the support of the French Ministry of Europe and Foreign Affairs, and in particular from its Crisis and Support Centre (CDCS) in charge of stabilization programming. The CDCS also played a key role in seeding Expertise France’s interventions from the start, and giving it the capacity to further intervene along the years, where local populations’ needs are the greatest.