Ongoing violence in Iraq has caused hundreds of thousands of people to seek safety in Syria, placing a heavy burden on the country’s social services. With limited purchasing power and volatile food and fuel prices, many Iraqis who fled to Syria are experiencing increasing difficulty in meeting their basic household and food needs, and are resorting to distress strategies such as selling assets and incurring debt to meet their basic needs.
Syria’s rural and Bedouin communities in arid and semi-arid areas of the country face escalating economic difficulties as their high dependency on agriculture leaves them vulnerable to erratic rainfall and cyclical droughts. Following the worst drought in four decades – with total rainfall during the winter of 2007/08 much below average – crop and livestock production, natural vegetation and the overall livelihoods of farmers and herders and their families were highly affected.
Female illiteracy and low school attendance rates are additional development challenges to the country. In the north-eastern governorates of Syria, drop-out rates reached 45 percent as children leave school to work or to participate in traditional seasonal migration. Moreover, the illiteracy rate for women is as high as 26.4 percent, leaving women marginalized from economic activities.
Since 1964, WFP has provided about US$400 million worth of food assistance to Syria through development and emergency operations. WFP development projects targeted the poorest rural communities in marginalized areas, primarily small subsistence farmers, herders, schoolchildren and women, whereas emergency operations targeted the victims of the collapse of the Zeyzoun Dam in 2002 and Lebanese refugees during the war in Lebanon in 2006.
Current WFP activities include:
