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As Syria experiences major upheaval in the aftermath of Bashar al-Assad’s ousting from power in late 2024, the humanitarian response finds itself at a crossroads characterised by both significant challenges and new opportunities.
In a special episode of I Think You’re On Mute, in partnership with the UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub, host Beth Eggleston is joined by Aya Yagan and Mazen Alhousseiny to discuss the evolving situation and key research insights from our recent report: AFTER ASSAD: Navigating Syria’s Humanitarian Crossroads.
Podcast host and guests
Beth Eggleston
Beth is the Director of the Humanitarian Advisory Group (HAG) and co-founded the organisation in 2012. She has worked in the humanitarian sector specialising in civil-military coordination and humanitarian reform for the last two decades and has field experience in Afghanistan, Liberia, Tonga, Costa Rica, Laos PDR, Timor-Leste, and Vietnam.
Aya Yagan
Aya is the Technical Director at NSDation. She is a certified CHS and Sphere trainer, specialising in Monitoring and Evaluation (M&E), research, and capacity-strengthening initiatives for humanitarian organisations. Aya engages in cutting-edge research projects to provide humanitarian and development actors with critical insights into their operational ecosystems, enhancing their response capabilities. In crisis settings, Aya collaborates with humanitarian organisations to design high-quality programs, ensuring accountability to donors and affected communities through M&E.
Mazen Alhousseiny
Mazen has more than 12 years of experience in the humanitarian and development domain, mainly in the Syrian context and international responses. He has managed tens of short-term emergency response interventions as well as long-duration and sustained resilience projects in sectors such as food security, shelter, water and sanitation, health, and education. Mazen is an organisational strengthening expert, combining academic knowledge with the practical experience. In 2020, he completed his second master’s degree from the University of Manchester in Organisational Change and Development with distinction. He is currently working with HelpAge international as capacity strengthening advisor supporting its local partners organisational capacity.
Podcast research and links
- Humanitarian Advisory Group | AFTER ASSAD: Navigating Syria’s Humanitarian Crossroads (April 2025)
- Concern Worldwide | Beyond Barriers: Overcoming Funding & Human Resource Obstacles to Achieve a Localized Humanitarian Response (January 2025)
Podcast transcript
Beth Eggleston: Before we begin, I’d like to Acknowledge the Traditional Custodians and their ancestors of the unceded lands and waters on which we live, work and depend. We recognise all First Nations Peoples around the world and celebrate their enduring connections to Country, and pay our respects to Elders, past, present, and emerging.
Syria is a land of profound historical significance, a country rich in diverse ethnic and religious heritage, and a nation that has endured nearly 14 years of war and conflict – only for new wave of violence to erupt yet again. The collapse of the regime of the long-time ruler, President Bashar al-Assad has been met with celebration by millions of Syrians. For many, it represents a glimpse of hope, the possibility of peace and stability after years of war. But as the dust settles, the transition period brings other challenges impacting on Syria’s humanitarian system. Humanitarian needs in the country remain at record highs, while access constraints, political fragmentation, and scarce funding continue to pose major barriers to help those in need. Instead of being scaled up, humanitarian operations in Syria have been forcibly shut down following the United States’ decision to temporarily halt all US-funded aid work from the end of January – one of the largest setbacks to humanitarian assistance in the region. In March 2025, another dark chapter in Syria’s history unfolded. Over two days, more than 1,000 people, including 745 civilians, were killed as result of clashes between Syrian security forces and fighters loyal to the former Assad regime, hitting one of the highest death tolls in Syria since 2011. Humanitarian aid is more critical than ever. For many Syrians, it feels like the struggle is far from over. Humanitarian organisations now have to navigate a complex landscape, where access is dictated by both local and national actors, and often requires navigating changing regulations and shifting partnerships. In some cases, this has led organisations to move their operations from the northwest to formally regime-controlled areas to ensure they can continue delivering aid. While humanitarian needs remain high, there is also a growing focus on transitioning from emergency relief to long-term stabilisation and recovery. With large-scale rebuilding needed, from infrastructure to agriculture, addressing these needs requires not only immediate humanitarian support but also long-term strategies for recovery and peacebuilding. In this episode we dive into recent research we’ve conducted with one our key research partners and a humanitarian practitioner working in the Syrian context to explore shifts, along with their opportunities and challenges.
I am so pleased to be joined today by Aya Yagan, the Technical Director of NSDation Consultancy Services, and one of the researches and writers of this report. Aya, could you please introduce yourself to our listeners?
Aya Yagan: Sure. Thank you very much, Beth. So my name is Aya Yangan. As Beth mentioned, I’m the technical director at NSDation. I’ve been engaged in this research and many other research, especially after the changing dynamic and the changing governance structure in Syria. And we had the privilege to meet with many humanitarian actors and non humanitarian actors to learn about the dynamics, the changing infrastructure, and the developments actually. So happy to be here with you today.
Beth Eggleston: Thank you so much, Aya. So the first question I would like to ask you is really based on the findings from this research. What are some of the most critical humanitarian priorities in Syria right now?
Aya Yagan: So basically, our research was focusing on what are the real humanitarian priorities, including humanitarian access. And by access, I just want to draw attention that, before, before at the governance system shift, Syria was kind of like the humanitarian organisation were operating from three different hubs in Syria. And when we when we talk about access, we talk about access mainly to formerly regime-controlled areas, because this is where the government and the governance regulations and decisions are made, actually. So the newly formed local governance system are increasingly shaping and impacting the humanitarian strategies, particularly for the in the for the formerly region-controlled areas. The fall of the Assad regime actually impacted access restrictions for humanitarians operating in Syria from different parts. So, in some organisation, we have seen a tendency for some organisations, they were based previously in Northwest moving and shifting to formerly regime-controlled areas to access to have their registrations, open offices so they can have further access and they can implement further humanitarian programs. When we look at the international organisations, there’s still some different regulations. For the for the international humanitarian organisations in order to access different parts of Syria and the regulations, until yesterday actually were different because, in the regime actually, utilise the prior protocols for humanitarian organisations to operate in Syria. Mainly they needed to partner and to work through national partners solely, and there are two national partners only. Whereas if we look at the bigger picture in Syria, we know that the operating modality already have established partnership modalities through different parts of Syria. For example, in northwest, we know that INGOs and CBO CSOs have a strong, long history of partnership and humanitarian implementation. So how do you change those dynamics now given the current change? We know that in Northeast, there are also some different forms of partnership and direct implementation also for international organisation. So how that access would be impacted now. During our research, we found that there is still things are evolving because also our research is evolving. So things are still evolving. We know that there has been a regulation at the beginning of our research, and things are evolving because humanitarian organisations are negotiating access, of course, because they want to align access also with the humanitarian principles and priorities.
Beth Eggleston: Wow, thank you, Aya for really being out to outline how access is so complex in this in this situation. And as you mentioned, so much is happening, you know, even just in the last couple of days. So my second question, if we’re thinking about that context and the research, is how can humanitarian actors work towards the transition from emergency relief to stabilisation, particularly considering the current funding landscape in which we find ourselves?
Aya Yagan: Yeah, thank you very much. So that’s exactly what we try to answer in our research. We all acknowledge that humanitarian needs remain high, but there is an increasing focus on the transition from the emergency relief to long term sustainability and stabilisation. Because the country is really tired, the people are really tired, everyone is looking for stabilisation and also just to bring back the basic services. The community, one Syria. If you look at social media now, everyone is calling for one Syria, one Syria, one unified Syria actually. So there is opportunities for humanitarian actors to work really closely with development actors, with also local actors to strengthen and to ensure that these efforts are translated. So for example, the needs actually and the ways are really different. So for example, when we talk about the IDPs, we all know that on the borders of Syria, there is a lot of huge areas of camps and IDPs are still settling there. So when these settlers, they wanted to come back to their homes and when they wanted to come back to their areas, they found their homes are really destroyed. There’s no infrastructure, there’s no basic services, still there is a risk of the removal of the rubble, there all these needs. So the first actually priority whenever we are talking to our respondents to this research, everyone is talking about, we need first to tackle and to build the infrastructure because the infrastructure is really damaged. First from the long civil war that has been going on and also by the earthquake that hit Syria as well. So there is still a lot of damage infrastructure, let alone, of course, as I said the basic infrastructure such as water, electricity and that also differ from area to area. It’s more severe in some areas. When we look at the food security and the livelihoods, and if I want to zoom in to the agriculture sector, of course we need to think about rehabilitation of the irrigation system, how to rebuild the agriculture sector, because it’s a major sector, especially in the northeastern part of Syria. When we look at, the protection, for example, we all know that protection in Syria has mainly been led by the humanitarian agencies. So humanitarian agencies need to continue to invest and to continue their programming. We all know that there is massive challenges now, especially with the US held, with many other also funding shrinking. But the humanitarian efforts in Syria are really still needed and protection needs not only to be maintained, but really needs to be at a larger scale. When you talk about protection, we’ve talked about different forms like, protecting the IDPs from occupation, from the secondary occupation, from forced eviction. When we talk about, like the health and protection, we talk about this psychosocial support and the legal support. There’s massive really, protection programs and protection needs also for specific groups such as the women, the elderly, the people with, people with the specific needs, so gender-based violence, of course, is still a priority in our country. So basically those are the main needs and this is how we can actually inject. Everyone was talking about injecting the humanitarian with the recovery phase. Like, we talk about the Nexus approach, injecting the humanitarian and the recovery phase. And this is exactly what is needed. And the first entry is actually everyone was talking about rehabilitation of the infrastructure.
Beth Eggleston: Wow, you’ve really allowed us to understand just the complexity in terms of the different sectors, the different areas and the different needs and challenges in terms of allowing communities to have access to the services that they need. In this kind of environment Aya, what opportunities are there to strengthen partnerships between local and national actors to better meet some of these current and future needs of Syrian communities?
Aya Yagan: So basically, we all know that humanitarian, international organisations, civil societies, local actors have been operating through different parts of Syria and everyone is contributing with their own expertise. This in fact needs to be nourished. This needs to be invested in further. Our research have seen massive opportunities for these type of existing partnerships to be strengthened more. To be also respondents talk about empowering more the local led response because the local led response. These Syrian led organisations, they are full of energy, they’re full of hope for their country, they’re full of plans for their country. So investing in building on these capacities, strengthening, the partnership between the international NGOs, between also donors and also local national organisations. This is something that we have been hearing from our research a lot, and this is actually how we can strengthen these opportunities. We understand that there are limitations, especially now at the critical stage. Regulations are still under revision. Actors are really struggling how to coordinate and how to join the effort. But let’s look at the, let’s look at the positive part that there is still conversation of organisations talked about formal and informal coordination because they want to join the effort. They want to make use of any opportunity to work with local partners to strengthen their capacity; whether it’s a technical capacity, whether it’s managerial or institutional capacity. There are some short term plans, there are long term plans, and everyone is actually planning and everyone is looking at these opportunities. But these opportunities cannot co-exist alone. There should be also a revision of a clear access regulations, a clear also from the government as well, a clear a dialog, actually, between humanitarian actors, different humanitarian actors, the current regime actually to shape, to understand how humanitarian actors can work in-country, support the local entities, empower them in different sectors. We also heard from the participants that they talk about looking at when we talk about local organisation, they would like to focus on specialisation. For example, there are some local organisations specialised in health. Others are specialised in education. So having some also talked about, following an area-based approach when multiple organisation focus on one area and each organisation provide different, different programs and different services. So that’s a joint effort, not duplicated, but also complementary efforts. So these type of investments I think we need to invest in and nourish in order to tackle the current challenges.
Beth Eggleston: And I love Aya that you spoke about I mean often we just hear about the capacity development or capacity building of local organisations. But I love that you also talk about that donors also need to be learning about how to operate in this kind of context; the complexity and the nuances, across the country and how humanitarian assistance needs to be delivered differently in different places and with different actors. You you’ve really being able to demonstrate that in such an articulate way. Thank you so much. And thank you for joining the podcast Aya – it’s really been a pleasure to have you.
Aya Yagan: Thank you. Likewise. Thank you very much, Beth.
Beth Eggleston: I’m delighted to welcome Mazen Hassani to the podcast. Mazen is a capacity strengthening advisor with HelpAid International. He also recently wrote an article on upgrading the Syrian diaspora NGOs. Welcome, Mazen. Could you please introduce yourself to our listeners?
Mazen Alhousseiny: Hi, Beth. Hi, everyone. So this is Mazen. I’m Syrian, based in the UK. I’ve worked for the humanitarian and development sector for almost 13 years. I started as a volunteer in my home in my city Damascus and slowly, slowly moved until I become a director for the operations in inside Syria from Turkey. And then I’ve shifted to the organisational development six years ago after I completed my master here from the University, Manchester.
Beth Eggleston: Thank you. Mazen. So my first question really is asking you to draw on some of that experience that you’ve just outlined and really wanting to learn from you, what are some of the biggest challenges for international organisations delivering aid in Syria?
Mazen Alhousseiny: Sure. If you allow me, I just wanted to go back after 2011 in order just to give a summary about the situation at that time until the liberation last year in 2024. So during that era, Syria was divided into three hubs: so northwest Syria and northeast Syria and then regional Syria. Each hub was targeted by organisations, international organisations, UN agencies, and local organisations, from the countries nearby to that hub. So for northwest Syria it was targeted from Turkey, for northeast Syria it was targeted from Iraq and then regional hub it was targeted from inside Damascus. And then we have Jordan hub, which encompasses the three hubs altogether. So why I’m mentioning that is that, first of all, to show you the lack of communication, the lack of coordination, the lack of the layers that we had at that time for coordination mechanisms between the UN agencies, INGOs and local organisations. At the beginning, since 2011 until 2014, international organisations in northwest Syria tried to respond directly by themselves, but because of the security threat at that time from radical groups, they have shifted to subcontracting at that time, not fully partner. With time, with awareness sharing that we have done and other efforts as well from dedicated staff who believed in the true partnerships, we have managed to enhance the relationship according to the global humanitarian platform partnership principles. I could say that we have ended in 2024 having a strong localisation for northwest Syria. That was not the case for northeast Syria. Northeast Syria, local organisations could not have the opportunity similar to those that have, the opportunity in northwest Syria. International organisations still wanted to work directly in northeast Syria. They in some cases subcontracted local organisations to do some of this stuff on their behalf, but was not called a true partnership. So we have not seen organisational development activities, we have not seen true localisation for northeast Syria. In the regime, the former regime held areas in Damascus and the region, the central region, the case was also different. There was a powerful and strong civil society existed before 2011, but due to the restrictions from the former regime, they were not allowed international organisations, UN agencies were not allowed to work with those CBOs and local organisations; they were only allowed to work with the government affiliated organisations. In order to divert some of the funding channels, in order to focus on specific areas, in order to prevent aid to go to the most vulnerable. So in general, it was more like a fraud activities from the regime, the former regime, in order to manipulate aid and to use it as power tool. So these were the challenges until 2024. Right now with the liberation, with the bringing together the country all united together. So one of the challenges is that how to bring all of these three hubs working together in tendency. So that’s the first challenge. The second thing is that the country right now is facing a fragile economic situation and fragile infrastructure. There is still international sanctions on the banking system and on importing important commodities that’s needed for the community. So at that time, at the time, now as well, there is also natural hazards which are increasing due to the climate change and it’s also integrated with the, with the fragile situation that have occurred in the last 14 years ago. So we could see, like a snowstorm or a heavy raining, even could create catastrophe in some areas in the country. We could see drought in northeast Syria is affecting directly the agriculture, the livestock and creating water scarcity. So that’s the challenges I believe at the time being.
Beth Eggleston: Thank you Mazen. I mean, indeed, the under the former regime, it sounds like things were very, very complicated, and thank you for touching on that piece around localisation and partnership, and actually what true partnership looks like. And as you’ve moved through and let us understand what some of the current challenges are, my next question really is around, I mean, I’d love to know, from your point of view what some of the opportunities are for this system now to evolve and to overcome some of these challenges? I mean, I recognise the situation now is still quite unpredictable and can be quite dangerous still. But I’m interested to know what opportunities do you identify in terms of how these challenges can be overcome?
Mazen Alhousseiny: Sure. I believe one of the opportunities that we could use, we could learn from the some of the success in the application of the localisation commitment for northwest Syria. We could benefit from that success in order to duplicate the same success in other regions. Right now it is one unified country, so maybe we could share that experience for organisations that used to work in northwest Syria or organisations that used to work in the regime. It’s not easy at all, because for some of the international organisations and UN agencies, it is as if we are starting from the beginning with local organisations. I remember in 2012, 2013 when international organisations and UN agencies started to engage with us and Syrian organisations working for northwest Syria, starting with engaging with us. So they started from the beginning, from scratch. So what is the financial report? What is a narrative report, doing training on some of these standards on the humanitarian, responses, doing track trainings on project management, on monitoring and evaluation, what is monitoring and evaluation? And then slowly, slowly they have enhanced our policies, procedures, supported us to develop our systems and mechanisms. And we could see right now Syrian organisations that used to work for northwest Syria, participating in international conferences and they are sharing the voices of the vulnerable communities. There they are advocating strongly, whether it’s in Geneva or New York, all of those international, conferences. So, I believe that this success could be replicated to the organisations working in northwest Syria and the central hub as well. This is one of the opportunities. The second opportunity is that we could move from the direct emergency responses to other long term development interventions. I mean, here we should not just focus on the short term support for some of the events related to floods or some of the even related to natural hazards. We should look at how to strengthen the capacity of the infrastructure in order to make, the community more prepared against those natural hazards as a number one. In order to develop the economy so that they could overcome the challenges that related to the lack of, economic opportunities, lack of security, we could look at opportunities to enhance the education and make it unified. Previously, we have three educational systems for each and every, hub as we could have. So we have to unify them all together. We have three health systems, so we have to unify them together as well. So this is an opportunity for international organisations and UN agencies to bring their experiences from after war context, similar to the Syrian one, so that we could work together in order to enhance the systems in the country faster. Another opportunity, if you allow me, I could say about the capacities that have been developed for aid workers and development workers as well. It could be an opportunity in order to be embedded within the new government. The new government is starting from scratch, literally from scratch, so they are discovering things I right now. So with the trainings and capacity strengthening activities that have been done for individuals working in the development and aid sector, they could be an asset for the new government. Local organisations in the past 15 years were providing water, they were running hospitals, they were managing schools, they had the primary health care centres, they were fixing and maintaining roads, streets, building dams from scratch. So this is essential right now for the government to be aware about, so we have assets they could benefit from that.
Beth Eggleston: And Mazen you’ve been describing there about some of the different services that local organisations provide, the knowledge and experience, and the networks they’ve built up. How do you think that international humanitarian actors can further effectively support a Syrian led response and to ensure those local organisations can bring that experience to bear?
Mazen Alhousseiny: Yeah, we have started seeing international organisations nationalising some of the positions, particularly here. I’m talking about the leadership positions such as contracted head of operations, head of mission. So we have seen these, right now. That’s a good way on for good steps towards localisation. We want to see, more, real peer to peer relationship with those local organisations. What this meant by here is that to try to get out from the subcontracting mechanism and to focus on having direct communication with those local organisations in order to develop the proposals, ideas together, or hold the hand of those local organisations and then take them to the international conferences in order to share the voices of the local community directly without having intermediaries in between. Trying to push and advocate governments that have sanctions right now on Syria, and we have seen that the European Union and the UK have lifted some of those sanctions. It’s really important that the US as well is doing that. So with advocacy, with push from international organisations showing how those sanctions are really affecting the Syrian community in order to rebuild, to reconstruct. So I think, that’s a good role that they could play over here, particularly as that will help positively on the localisation. Also, previously there were no system for coordination between the three hubs, so the international organisations and agencies could play a good role over here in order to unify the coordination mechanism. And then slowly, slowly hand it over to the government so that we could ensure the sustainability of that coordination system for longer and longer time. We could see as well the international organisations and UN agencies play a role with enhancing the accountability mechanisms in the country so that we could see local communities held us as local organisations accountable on our actions. Previously, there were no authority that we could rely on in order to impose the power. So with increasing the accountability, we could see that we as local organisations, if we have done any mistake, we are still going to be held accountable and we are not going to run away with our unethical activities. Yeah so all of these are opportunities that I could see international organisations and UN agencies could play in order to enhance the localisation.
Beth Eggleston: Yeah, fantastic Mazen. I love what you were saying, you know, really around moving past subcontracting these ideas of this is what maybe partnership is, when in fact it’s so much more, it’s so much more meaningful. So that’s been absolutely fantastic, really great to learn from you and to understand what this is looking like on the ground and the huge changes that are happening at the moment in Syria. We can’t thank you enough for your time. Thank you very much and we look forward to staying in touch. Thank you.
Mazen Alhousseiny: Thanks, Beth.
Beth Eggleston: As we wrap up today’s episode, we’ve heard insights, stories and hopes from humanitarian experts and practitioners in Syria about the changes and the implication to humanitarian system in the country. Once again, local humanitarian actors carry a pivotal role to responding the needs of the affected community in this rapidly evolving context. So, how can the humanitarian system effectively respond to this crisis? One important aspect is to strengthen partnerships between local, national, and international actors. Empowering locally-led organisations who possess deep knowledge of local needs and are driven by a strong commitment to rebuild their country is crucial. As is clear access regulations to facilitate coordination and collaboration among all stakeholders, including the government. Another important strategy is adopting a Nexus approach, where humanitarian work is aligned with recovery efforts. This means integrating short-term aid with long-term development initiatives. For instance, in parts of northeastern Syria, there’s a strong focus on rehabilitating irrigation systems to restore agricultural productivity, a critical element for food security. Furthermore, protection programming must continue to address the needs of vulnerable populations, including women, children, and other marginalised groups. In the end, a coordinated, multi-sectoral approach that combines emergency relief with recovery and development efforts is needed for Syria to begin its journey toward recovery and long-term stability. Thank you for joining us for this special episode of I Think You’re On Mute – we look forward to continuing this conversation. If you would like to partner with us for future episodes where we can continue to explore critical humanitarian issues, please do reach out to us.
This episode was made possible by the Humanitarian Rapid Research Initiative, commissioned and supported by the UK Humanitarian Innovation Hub, with funding from the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. The views shared in this episode are those of the speakers alone and do not necessarily reflect the positions of the organisations they represent.
This podcast was produced and recorded by Room3, a production company that works with not-for-profits and social enterprises, and supported by Green Letter Communications.
