When reform forgets: the cost of humanitarian amnesia in Syria

Since the early years of the conflict, humanitarian aid in Syria operated within a fragmented and highly politicised system. The overthrow of the Assad regime on 8 December 2024 brought that system to a standstill.

A system designed to survive itself

The adoption of UN Security Council Resolution (UNSCR) 2165 in 2014 was designed to expand humanitarian assistance to Syrians by authorising cross-border operations in the country. While this mechanism was intended to expand reach and efficiency, it also had the unintended effect of institutionalising a fragmented response. Three distinct hubs emerged – Damascus, Gaziantep and Amman – each managing access through different political and operational channels. Eventually, entire regions, most prominently the northeast of the country, were left out of United Nations (UN) coverage altogether. Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) stepped in to fill these gaps, quietly and often without sufficient resources.

The Whole of Syria (WoS) framework was introduced to bridge these imbalances, creating a single humanitarian response plan meant to align both cross-border and cross-line operations. Grounded in the temporary legal basis provided by UNSCR 2165, WoS was meant to safeguard neutral humanitarian action and prevent the over-centralisation of decision-making. In practice, however, its effectiveness rested on maintaining a delicate balance of political and operational autonomy across hubs. Importantly, the success of this framework depended on institutional courage and the capacity of the UN system to act as one – neither of which were evident in Syria.

One of the earliest signs of institutional drift was the UN’s interpretation of General Assembly Resolution 46/182, which led to the creation of the Office for Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA) and affirmed the principle of state consent in humanitarian response. Intended to foster cooperation, the clause was instead weaponised by the Assad regime to obstruct aid. Despite legal arguments that international law did not prohibit cross-border aid without state consent, the UN in Damascus acquiesced. Independence was surrendered at the operational level, and ‘state consent’ became the primary gatekeeper of humanitarian access. In effect, when military aims clashed with humanitarian needs, it was Damascus that decided where UN convoys could go.

This retreat set the stage for a broader shift in posture, one that became formalised through initiatives like the Early Recovery Trust Fund (ERTF). While framed as a vehicle to mobilise resources for infrastructure rehabilitation and early recovery, the ERTF was designed to overwhelmingly channel decision-making and funding through Damascus-based mechanisms with limited external oversight. For many Syrians, this was not neutrality but normalisation: a signal that the UN was aligning itself with the same regime responsible for displacing nearly half the country’s population.

As the UN fragmented along mandates and resolutions, NGOs splintered along access arrangements, registration status, and risk appetite. Hub-based forums came to embody the political geographies in which they operated, and legal status quickly became the primary determinant of what NGOs said, and what they did. In Damascus, international NGOs (INGOs) operating under severe surveillance rarely spoke out against state-sponsored atrocities. In the northeast, NGOs registered under local authorities in northeast Syria pushed the forum to concentrate advocacy squarely on Turkish-backed airstrikes. In the northwest, a forum composed of agencies registered in Türkiye condemned Damascus and Moscow’s attacks on Idlib, but stayed silent on Ankara’s military campaigns elsewhere in the country.

The humanitarian response to the 2023 earthquakes exposed these tectonic fractures. In northwest Syria, aid was delayed as UN agencies awaited consent. Local responders, including the White Helmets, worked with minimal equipment or resources as cross-line aid from Damascus was obstructed or diverted. By the UN’s own estimate, only 5% of the impacted sites and towns in northwest Syria were being covered by search-and-rescue operations, and when the first UN convoy did cross 72 hours into the crisis, it was roundly criticised by Syrians for only bringing ‘non-food items, blankets and hygiene kits’. The head of OCHA at the time, Martin Griffiths, publicly acknowledged the UN had ‘so far failed the people of Northwest Syria’. By contrast, regime-held areas received priority funding through official channels, with an estimated two-thirds of all assistance routed via Damascus despite the northwest bearing the brunt of the disaster. Across the response, appeals were made and statements issued, but the gap between rhetoric and action had become impossible to ignore. Between resolutions and reticence, neutrality in Syria had hardened into silence and coordination transformed into compliance.

A ‘cast-iron grip’ of humanitarian coordination

When the regime was overthrown on 8 December 2024, this system froze. Two-thirds of the country still needed humanitarian support, but the conflict lines that divided humanitarian responsibility had disappeared. In addition, some of the most vocal critics of the UN’s leadership of the humanitarian response were now in charge of the country.

On 17 December 2024, in his address to the Security Council, Under-Secretary-General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief Coordinator Tom Fletcher outlined the UN’s humanitarian plans for Syria: ‘a cast-iron grip’ of coordination, a clear picture of needs across the country, and government engagement by the Humanitarian Coordinator to protect principled access and aid.

In Damascus, the UN was in disarray. Years of perceived institutional alignment with the Assad regime meant it was struggling to build trust with new authorities. Relationships cultivated under the former administration did not translate, and the perception of Syrians that the UN had operated as an extension of the former regime complicated credibility. This dynamic has persisted, with humanitarian actors noting that structural habits formed during the ‘regime years’ impacted the UN’s ability to adapt to new political realities.

In January 2025, lacking normative alternatives and resources, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs reactivated circulars mandating that INGOs register through one of two intermediary entities previously linked to aid diversion, access restrictions, and interference in recruitment and assessments. These provisions not only placed INGOs in compromised operating environments but also significantly undercut national NGOs by structurally monopolising the localisation of humanitarian resources. Given the fact that this role did not fall within their natural mandate, these ‘umbrella’ entities also risked creating bottlenecks that could delay the response and further blur the transparency of NGO relations with authorities. The implications of this policy were flagged early by the NGO community, warning that ‘on demand’ compliance would risk neutrality, diminish trust with communities, and continue a legacy of restricted access. Unfortunately, despite efforts to navigate the issue, senior UN leaders in Damascus were unable to put forward a unified position, clear guidance, or public objection.

Eight months on, UN progress in Syria remains limited. While coordination bodies such as the Humanitarian Country Team, Inter-Cluster Coordination Group, and technical working groups continue to function, they do so without the coherence of a unified national architecture or the credibility of a UN-led, countrywide assessment of needs. In fact, the creation of a new Humanitarian Response Plan for Syria, the system’s central planning tool, has been extended three times in a reflection of the UN’s continued difficulty engaging with authorities.

The UN Transitional Action Plan was intended to guide the system through this very moment: to support stabilisation, enable structured dialogue with new authorities, and reposition humanitarian operations in light of political change. Unfortunately, like the Early Recovery Trust Fund before it, the Transitional Action Plan has faltered. Today, a persistent deficit of trust in the UN continues to constrain its ability to lead, adapt, or credibly coordinate the response in Syria. The gap was on quiet display at a UN donor meeting in March, where an empty chair was left beside the Resident Coordinator – a placeholder for an interim government representative who never came.

Unity as necessity

Despite structural and funding shocks, one of the tangible achievements of the humanitarian response in Syria has been the way INGOs and national NGOs came together to form an effective, unified front. Although NGOs receive roughly half of all humanitarian funding, they deliver nearly 80% of aid on the ground. This reality created a strong incentive to cooperate early, combining the international reach and donor access of INGOs with the local legitimacy and community acceptance of national NGOs.

Neutral convening spaces emerged as a function of this collaboration, and were deliberately designed to cut through political divides. By January 2025, NGOs had developed contingency plans, produced country-wide assessments, and established a basis for collective advocacy. Channels of communication were also opened with interim authorities, often to discuss issues previously considered too sensitive: neutrality, operational independence, and principled access. This included frank and open conversations around registration.

When representation shifted toward Damascus, NGOs adapted, promoting leadership models based on capacity and operational relevance rather than inherited presence. These efforts meant that NGO perspectives were reflected in key response strategies and decision-making processes at critical moments of the transition.

Unity was tested when the United States suspended funding, cutting roughly one-third of NGO budgets overnight. Programmes were disrupted and staff laid off, but coordinated outreach to donors, joint planning, and shared risk mitigation kept essential services running during a period of growing displacement and returns. This collaboration did more than sustain operations – it reshaped the architecture of the response. By April 2025, humanitarian hubs were functionally consolidated; and by July 2025, over 160 international and national agencies had unified under the Syria NGO Forum.

Humanitarians do not get to ‘reset’ history

Since 8 December 2024, national and international NGOs have increasingly voiced a question once unspoken: where is the UN, and what unique value does it bring to the response? This is not an expression of hostility but rather a reflection of the Syrian experience over more than a decade of crisis response, in which the UN’s added value has at times been difficult to discern.

The UN still matters in Syria. It retains immense logistical capacity, convening power, and normative authority. But it also faces a profound challenge to its credibility – not just from authorities, but from Syrian civil society, humanitarian agencies and communities themselves.

In contrast, national and international NGOs are forging new forms of collaboration, developing joint platforms and collective positions that cut across traditional divides. Together, they are pushing the boundaries on long-contested issues like neutrality, operational independence and principled access, and testing how they can be applied more transparently and in closer conversation with those closest to the crisis, including authorities.

This moment offers a rare opportunity for donors, the UN and international actors to reimagine how aid is led, coordinated and held accountable. NGOs in Syria have shown that alternatives to centralisation and opacity are not only possible, but are already being built.

Seizing this opportunity requires honesty about what came before. As humanitarians in Syria know all too well, there can be no credible reform without reflection and no legitimacy without reckoning.

Humanitarians, after all, do not get to ‘reset’ history. The choices made in Syria had consequences that must be acknowledged, mitigated and rectified. A humanitarian system that seeks to move forward without reconciling with its past will only repeat its failures – this time, disguised as reform.

Imrul Islam has led inter-agency coordination, advocacy and government engagement for international aid organisations in Asia and the Middle East, most recently with the Syria INGO Regional Forum.

Giovanni Sciolto served as the last Syria INGO Regional Forum Representative. He has worked extensively across the Middle East and Africa in humanitarian leadership roles.