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On 8 December, the trajectory of life in Syria changed substantially, the latest in a series of massive shifts in how the country is governed and how its citizens live. It is clear, however, that Syria, Syrians living at home, and Syrians displaced around the world stand at a turning point. In this special edition of our newsletter, we recap the research we have conducted since the onset of the Arab Spring.

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More than a Decade of Research on Syria

The lives and livelihoods of Syrians have been a part of ISDC's research agenda since our founding more than 10 years ago. Across a variety of projects, we have studied (and continue to study) a population facing enormous challenges, and have tracked the impact of programs designed to offer support. 

This newsletter collects and presents highlights from this research agenda. We have studied Syrian populations (both at home and those that have been displaced) to understand their living situations and how the crises impacted them and their host communities. Beyond this, we have worked with a range of partners to try to understand how best to help Syrians - evaluating programming to help households become more food secure and more resilient in Syria, or to support their integration into host communities during their displacement. This has allowed us to dive into the micro-level of Syrian lives, thereby uncovering heterogeneities around gender and conflict exposure. 

Below, we present a collection of peer-reviewed articles, project reports, briefs, and working papers that that sheds light on the experiences of Syrians since the beginning of the Arab Spring. The first section dives into our research on Syrians living in Syria. Since this does not show the complete picture, we then shift our focus to Jordan and Lebanon, where we have undertaken several projects studying Syrian refugees and the communities that host them.

Taken together, this body of work not only provides incredibly detailed insight into the lives of Syrians living through multiple crises but also addresses key areas where rigorous evidence was scant, not just for Syrians but generally. Our systematic review, for example, has shown that very little is known about the impacts of agricultural interventions in complex humanitarian emergency settings. 

Nevertheless, there is more research to be done in complex humanitarian settings. in complex humanitarian settings. As Syria transitions into a new phase of its history, and its people into a new phase of uncertainty, there remains much work to do. If you would like to contribute to this research agenda, we are currently hiring a Senior Researcher (f/m/d). In the last part of this newsletter, we focus on our current and on-going work in Syria, which will be key to understanding how Syrians cope with and respond to this latest round of upheaval.

Syrians in Syria

Short- and medium-term impacts of small-scale vegetable support on food security: evidence from Syria

Small-scale agricultural and horticultural interventions play a critical role in improving nutrition and food security of vulnerable households in peaceful settings. In this paper, we address this knowledge gap by analyzing the short- and medium-term impacts of a small-scale vegetable input support program involving asset transfers on food security and diets in war-time Syria.

We find that the vegetable support significantly improves food security by 21% and 19% in the short- and medium-term, respectively. Moreover, we find that the intervention reduces in the short-term the use of harmful coping strategies by 17%. However, this effect dissipates two years after the end of the intervention. 

The findings underscore the importance of small-scale vegetable support in addressing food insecurity in protracted conflict settings.
 

Conducting (Long-term) Impact Evaluations in Humanitarian and Conflict Settings: Evidence from a complex agricultural intervention in Syria

While the number of people in humanitarian emergencies worldwide is increasing, most interventions in these settings are short-term in nature. Yet, evidence on the effectiveness of assistance (both short- and long-term) in these settings is scarce.

These gaps are primarily caused by the unavailability of (long-term) panel data in emergencies and by the challenges of constructing feasible counterfactuals. This paper contributes to the literature by reviewing existing literature and suggesting methods to overcome the challenges associated with these settings. In the Syrian case study, we examine the long-term causal impacts of agricultural interventions.

We find that the agricultural and livestock interventions have different impacts in the long term, implying that combined interventions may be more sustainable. Moreover, our findings suggest that short-term interventions can indeed have long-term impacts.
 

Violent conflict moderates food security impacts of agricultural asset transfers in Syria: A heterogeneity analysis using machine learning

To address the research gap on agricultural interventions in conflict settings, we apply an honest causal forest algorithm to analyse the short-term impacts of an agricultural asset transfer on food security. Our results show that agricultural asset transfers significantly improve food security in the short-term. Moreover, exposure to conflict intensity plays a key role in determining impact size. We find that households living in moderately affected conflict areas benefited significantly from the agricultural intervention and improved their food security by up to 14.4%, while those living in no or high conflict areas did not. The positive effects were particularly strong for female–headed households.

Our findings provide new insights on how violent conflict determines how households benefit from and respond to agricultural programming. This underscores the need to move away from one-size-fits-all agricultural support in difficult settings towards designing conflict-sensitive and inclusive interventions to ensure that no households are left behind.
 

Supporting Emergency Needs, Early Recovery and Longer-term Resilience in Syria’s Agriculture Sector

From 2018 to 2020, FAO Syria implemented the 'Supporting emergency needs, early recovery and longer-term resilience in Syria’s agriculture sector' program. This program delivered emergency and recovery support to rural households across Syria. ISDC advised and supported FAO with knowledge building and learning activities. 

In this endline report, we present the findings of the impact evaluation of the overall program with particular focus on resilience outcomes.

The report emphasizes the need for integrated resilience-building, better targeting of support, and strengthened rural markets to enhance sustainability in conflict-affected settings.

If you're looking for more concise insights: Our evidence brief summarizes the results of our evaluation of this program.
 

Impact Analysis of a Smallholder Support Programme for Agriculture Transformation

In addition to the program outlined above, FAO Syria implemented a 'Smallholder Support Programme'. The main objective was to contribute to the transformation of the agriculture sector in Syria by empowering vulnerable smallholder farmers and livestock keepers to be more productive, efficient and profitable as well as more informed, self-organised and risk aware.

In 2022, we looked at the results two years after program implementation. We could observe positive impacts, including enhanced food security, dietary diversity, and reduced reliance on harmful coping strategies, as well as increased incomes and agricultural productivity for beneficiaries. Despite these successes, challenges such as rising input costs, increased drought exposure, and concerns about food shortages highlight the need for continued resilience-building and targeted support.
 

Impact Analysis of a FAO Resilience Programme in Syria

This analysis of survey data from Syria was conducted in 2018 to support FAO Syria in a separate program dedicated to building knowledge, learning, and capacity. 

We found that food security deteriorated dramatically during, and due to, the crisis. Many regions have been affected by weather shocks such as droughts in recent years, which impairs food security in two ways. First, droughts have the expected direct, negative effects on food security. Second, droughts also exacerbate the adverse impacts of the crisis, pushing many households into extreme emergency.

The evaluated FAO program successfully supported local production chains, improved yield impacts, and benefitted particularly vulnerable households.
 

Syrian Refugees

Do Work Permits Work? The Impacts of Formal Labor Market Integration of Syrian Refugees in Jordan

The integration of refugees into host countries’ formal labor markets is increasingly recommended as a durable solution to forced migration. Yet, this policy response is a contentious political topic with little empirical evidence, especially in low- and middle-income host countries available to support policy. 

We use robust greedy one-to-one propensity score matching on comprehensive high-quality data from almost 75,000 Syrian refugee households collected between 2017 and 2019 to generate novel evidence on the socio-economic benefits of refugee labor market integration. Our findings show that the ability to access formal jobs, reflected by holding a work permit, is significantly associated with increased refugee income, strengthens food security, and reduces protection needs and child labor. 
 

Work permits for refugees as social protection during polycrises

A pandemic adds to the many existing challenges refugees face, creating a dangerous polycrisis. Drawing on detailed household-level data collected by UNHCR just before and during the COVID-19 pandemic, we analyse the economic impacts of granting work permits to Syrian and Iraqi refugees in Jordan.

Based on robust matching estimation, we show that during the pandemic, work permits strongly improved incomes, expenditures, and food security, and reduced child labour and engagement in risky jobs. The strength of these work permit impacts is comparable to the impacts before the COVID-19 pandemic. Our findings thus demonstrate that granting access to formal employment is an effective tool for the social protection of refugees, including in times of polycrisis. Restricting access to work permits — for example, by raising their price — does not appear to be a convincing strategy to achieve the social protection of refugees facing a polycrisis.
 

Building Stability Between Host and Refugee Communities: Evidence from a TVET Program in Jordan and Lebanon

It can be difficult to successfully build or improve livelihoods through jobs-based programming. In this World Bank Working Paper, we consider the impact of a vocational training program implemented by Mercy Corps in Jordan and Lebanon on social outcomes.

We find positive social impacts but only among members of the host community. If anything, perceptions indicators for host communities worsen. As our data show no biases in intergroup behavior at baseline, we do not attribute this outcome to improving intergroup relationships but to more specific factors, such as the indirect reciprocation of kindness.

These results show the potential weakness in treating conflicting sensitivity as simply a requirement to provide the same inputs to both host and refugee communities, regardless of the specific needs of each.
 

What Works And What’s Next For Social Stability In Jordan?

To contribute towards filling the evidence gaps on strengthening social cohesion and stability in Jordan, Mercy Corps’ research team partnered with ISDC to undertake an impact evaluation of one of Mercy Corps’ long-standing social cohesion programs in Jordan. The primary objectives of this program were to build trust, interaction, and cooperation between Jordanian host and Syrian refugee populations, and reduce competition and disputes over basic services such as water, health, and schools. 

We rigorously tested the attributable impacts of the program on social cohesion and stability outcomes, including intergroup interactions, willingness to use violence, and cooperation over local services.

This policy brief dives into our results.
 

Now Hiring: Senior Researcher (f/m/d)

We would not be able to do our research without a fantastic team of talented researchers. If you would like to contribute to this research agenda and have strong quantitative skills and a PhD, then we encourage you to apply.

We are looking for a Senior Researcher (f/m/d) to lead the design and implementation of research projects studying the impacts of humanitarian and development interventions in crises-affected areas including in the Sahel and the MENA regions. 

Recent Syria Projects

Events

Finally, Syria is sure to be a core part of the program next year's Fragile Lives conference. Join us in Berlin on 30 September and 1 October 2025!

That's it for this edition. We'll be in touch again with our regular newsletter at the end of the month!