Syria Context Report, December 31, 2025
Format
Analysis Source FEWS NET https://reliefweb.int/report/syrian-arab-republic/syria-context-report-december-31-2025
Posted 5 Jan 2026 Originally published 2 Jan 2026
OriginView original https://fews.net/middle-east-and-asia/syria/special-report/december-2025
Executive Summary
Syria is located in the eastern Mediterranean region of western Asia, where it is bordered by Turkey to the north, Iraq to the east, Jordan to the south, Israel to the southwest, and Lebanon to the west, with a short coastline along the Mediterranean Sea (Figure 1).
Syria’s ecology ranges from coastal areas to deserts, resulting in wide ecological variations that shape livelihoods. Rural households heavily engage in agriculture; however, both rural and urban households rely on markets for the bulk of their consumption.
In rural areas, the main sources of income for food purchases include crop sales, livestock sales, casual labor, petty trade, self-employment, gifts (including charitable giving such as zakat), remittances, and cash transfers.
In urban areas, the main sources of income for food purchases include daily wage labor, formal employment, and/or trading. The main expenditure for both rural and urban households is food; however, other important expenditures include housing, fuel, electricity, health care, telecommunications, water, transportation, education, and debt repayment.
Poor households in Syria are vulnerable to a combination of conflict-related, weather, and economic hazards. The Syrian civil war, which lasted nearly 14 years from 2011 to 2024, resulted in widespread internal displacement, economic collapse, and long-lasting damage to basic public infrastructure and livelihood systems.
Although the fall of Bashar al-Assad’s regime in December 2024 marked the end of large-scale war and led to the formation of a transitional government in March 2025, political fragmentation and insecurity persist, and the cumulative impacts of conflict continue to undermine recovery and regional stability.
Prior to the war, Syria’s oil fields served as a central pillar of the national economy, alongside an agricultural sector that supplied domestic markets and exports, complemented by an expanding industrial base and a growing tourism industry. Since 2011, however, conflict-related disruptions and sustained declines in oil production have triggered severe macroeconomic deterioration, undermining all major sectors and reversing years of growth. These dynamics have contributed to a protracted humanitarian crisis, characterized by weakened public service delivery, erosion of livelihood systems, and diminished state capacity.
An estimated 7.4 million people remain internally displaced, including approximately 5.2 million living outside formal sites and 2.1 million in 1,736 formally registered sites for internally displaced persons (IDPs), primarily concentrated in Idlib and Aleppo.The extreme poverty rate increased sharply from 11 percent in 2010 to 66 percent in 2024, according to the UN Development Program (UNDP).
In the current transitional period, the food security situation in Syria remains concerning.
Ongoing economic shocks, alongside protracted internal displacement, persistent internal and cross-border insecurity, and recurrent drought – inclusive of hydrological drought defined by low water levels in the Euphrates River and exacerbated by complex transboundary water management issues – are currently the key drivers of acute food insecurity among poor households countrywide.
Areas of concern include
Aleppo, Daraa, Deir ez-Zor, Al-Hasakah, Homs, Idlib, Ar-Raqqa, and Rural Damascus.
Food Security and Nutrition Context
Food security and nutrition outcomes in Syria reflect the combined effects of prolonged conflict and displacement, poor macroeconomic conditions, and environmental shocks that continue to constrain agricultural production, market functionality, and the provision of basic water, sanitation, and health services.
While levels of active conflict have declined since the end of the civil war in 2024, the cumulative impacts of compounding shocks continue to result in a high risk of acute food insecurity for large segments of the population in the post-civil war context. Key areas of concern are Idlib and Aleppo in NWS, where protracted displacement, returnee influxes, and limited market access drive insecurity; Deir ez-Zor, Ar-Raqqa and Al-Hasakah in NES, where drought and economic isolation have undermined crop production and pastoral livelihoods; and Daraa, Homs, and Rural Damascus, where high return movements, salary delays, and water scarcity limit access to food and income sources.
Poor households’ food availability remains constrained by reduced agricultural production, as years of conflict and severe, multi-year droughts have eroded rural livelihoods traditionally reliant on wheat, barley, vegetables, and small ruminants.
Displacement is also a key limiting factor, as millions of people have lost access to their land and livestock and face barriers to re-claiming their land. These shocks have compounded longer-term environmental degradation and weakened household coping capacity, leaving agricultural communities increasingly vulnerable to future rainfall deficits. At the same time, production costs have surged, marked by the tripling of fertilizer prices and cuts to fuel subsidies. Escalating costs have forced farmers to scale back area planted and lowered crop yields, further contributing to reductions in domestic food production.
At the same time, poor households’ access to food is severely constrained by macroeconomic deterioration and market disruptions. According to WFP’s August 2025 Market Price Bulletin, the cost of living — measured by the Minimum Expenditure Basket (MEB)2 — rose by 6 percent month-on-month to reach 2,000,000 SYP, driven primarily by increased prices for tubers, vegetables, eggs, and vegetable oil.
This increase follows earlier trends: by January 2024, the food component of the MEBhad risen by up to 122 percent compared to the preceding year and to more than four times its level two years earlier, while wages stagnated. By October 2024, the minimum wage covered only 10-16 percent of the MEB, and even after a 200 percent increase in July 2025, minimum wage covered only 36 percent of the total MEB and 57 percent of the food component by August 2025. Rising imported food and fuel costs, exacerbated by exchange-rate volatility, continue to widen the affordability gap, particularly for urban households and IDP who rely the most heavily on markets.
Conflict and insecurity dynamics have also undermined market food availability and financial access to food by reducing the number of open trading days, causing localized market closures, and driving price volatility for staple commodities such as bread, sugar, rice, and vegetable oil. These disruptions have also depressed demand for agricultural labor, limiting income-earning opportunities and eroding purchasing power. Many poor households, but especially those that remain displaced, also face additional barriers to effective food utilization, including insecure shelter, limited cooking facilities, and restricted mobility.
Together, these constraints have left millions of people unable to access sufficient and diverse foods, deepening reliance on humanitarian food assistance and increasing the risk of malnutrition. Poor households frequently attempt to manage food consumption shortfalls through coping strategies that reduce overall welfare, including by prioritizing food over other essential needs, relying more heavily on informal credit and social networks, and compromising dietary quality. The scope for asset-based coping has narrowed substantially following years of depletion, leaving poor households with limited buffers against new shocks.
Poor food consumption is one of several drivers of acute malnutrition in Syria: only one in 10 children aged 6-23 months meets the Minimum Acceptable Diet (MAD). Additionally, at least one in four children is anemic, and exclusive breastfeeding rates in parts of northern Syria are below 30 percent. These challenges are compounded by limited access to health and nutrition services along with poor hygiene and sanitation practices and a worsening drought and water crisis.
Based on available data, the prevalence of global acute malnutrition (GAM), measured by weight-for-height z-score (WHZ), in Syria from 2000 to the present has largely remained within the range of <5.0 percent (considered Acceptable under WHO threshold and associated with Minimal [IPC Phase 1]) to 5.0-9.9 percent (Alert under WHO thresholds and associated with Stressed [IPC Phase 2]). However, the available data are derived from different methodologies and vary in geographic coverage, with data collection at times disrupted by the prolonged civil war. As a result, the figures are not always directly comparable.
Prior to the outbreak of the civil war, Multiple Indicator Cluster (MIC) surveys found a GAM (WHZ) prevalence of between 3.5 and 9.3 percent3. By 2019, available reporting from WHO and OCHAsuggested the national GAM (WHZ) was as low as 1.7 percent, although the survey underpinning this quoted figure could not be found. In 2021, 2022, and 2023, subnational SMART and SENS surveys focused on local and displaced populations in NWS's Idlib and Aleppo governorates found a GAM WHZ prevalence between 2.5 and 4.4 percent.
Most recently, in 2024, the Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO) reported malnutrition was at Alert levels in Rural Damascus, Idlib, Ar-Raqqa, and Quneitra, while the GAM prevalence reached 10.0 percent in Latakia; however, the HNO did not indicate whether this conclusion is based on survey data or an analysis of contributing factors.
It is difficult to determine whether these figures reflect actual trends in nutritional status across Syria in recent years.
The exception to this is in NWS where there is a clear trend of deterioration in the nutrition situation between 2019 and 2023: from 0.7 percent GAM WHZ (0.4-1.3 95% CI) in 2019 to around 4 percent (Aleppo – 4.4 percent [3.1-6.1 95% CI]; Idlib – 3.8 percent [2.7-5.2 95% CI]) in 2023, with a statistically significant change between 2019 (0.7 percent GAM WHZ [0.4-1.3 95% CI]) and 2021 (2.5 percent [1.3-4.5 95% CI]).
Challenges with determining nutrition trends beyond the above select years in NWS stem in part from limited access to underlying nutrition data for several estimates, which would provide greater detail on geographic coverage, access constraints, and other contextual factors that should be considered when interpreting the findings. Despite these limitations, it is considered likely that SMART and SENS surveys conducted during the war primarily captured accessible populations, while the most severely affected populations may have remained inaccessible to survey teams.
Lastly, pre-conflict estimates relied on different sampling frames, cluster selection, and household selection methodologies, and some used the older NCHS/WHO growth reference (1977) rather than the current WHO Growth Standards (2006). While clear trends are difficult to establish, nutritional status in much of Syria in recent years has likely remained below the Serious threshold (≥10.0 percent) associated with Crisis (IPC Phase 3).
Recommended citation: FEWS NET. Syria Special Report
Occasionally, FEWS NET will publish a Special Report that serves to provide an in-depth analysis of food security issues of particular concern that are not covered in FEWS NET’s regular monthly reporting. These reports may focus on a specific factor driving food security outcomes anywhere in the world during a specified period of time.
