Executive Summary

• Syrian President Bashar al-Assad has been ousted following opposition armed forces’ entry into the city of Damascus. The former President’s authoritarian system of governance and violent suppression of anti-government demonstrations during the Arab Spring are recognised as having contributed to the start and prolongment of Syria’s armed conflict.
• Succeeding his father’s 29-year long tenure, and having been in office for 24 years, Bashar al-Assad’s departure represents a paradigmatic shift for Syria’s near-term future, and also for the international aid response in Syria. Syria’s opposition factions now face the task of having to create a new governance model and restore stability at a time when the country is at its most vulnerable, while the aid system must adapt to lines of engagement that have been wholly redrawn by recent events.
• The implications of the Assad regime’s departure necessitate a comprehensive reassessment of existing strategies and programme approaches on the part of aid actors. The massive socio-political organisation now underway has not only introduced new humanitarian priorities, but produced new possibilities and problems of international engagement, to include the role(s) of the multi-partite opposition, challenges of social cohesion, issues around the control of key infrastructure and natural resources, probable impacts on the Syrian economy, contention around the operationalisation of key concepts like early recovery, and inevitable recalibrations around aid access, donor strategies, and aid fund design.
• For years, the aid and development community has operated under a series of assumptions which informed its operational strategies, resource allocations, and risk management frameworks for a Syria that was irretrievably under al-Assad. Many of those assumptions are now practically immaterial. While this is in some respects a ‘tabula rasa’ opportunity for the response community, the potential for shifting alliances, competing, ineffective, and/or malicious governance structures, and internecine conflict is equally a very real possibility and must be factored into future planning.