Between April and September 2019, COAR produced five Needs Oriented Strategic Area Profiles (NOSAP) for an unnamed client. The purpose of this project was to inform our client’s strategy with respect to Syria. For these area profiles, formal administrative boundaries were disregarded in favor of ‘natural’ geographic designations that are informed by socio-economic solidarities, traditional political linkages, and self-identification. On these bases, the following areas were assessed: Eastern Ghouta, Eastern Qalamoun, Northern Rural Homs, Southwestern Dar‘a, and the Northern Corridor.

Having completed the project, COAR has received permission to share these documents with a wider audience in the hope that they will be useful to those responding to the Syria crisis. COAR remains solely responsible for any oversights or errors. It is our hope that these documents will provide another data source for those undertaking programmatic interventions in Syria, while furthering discussions of the ‘do no harm’ principle and prompting reflection on the direct and indirect outcomes of humanitarian, development, and peace-building interventions. Further research is without question necessary. However, one unifying theme emerges repeatedly throughout these reports: in Syria, communities within a given region are interconnected on a multitude of sectoral and geographic dimensions. Because of this interconnectedness, the impact of any particular local dynamic or programmatic intervention invariably radiates across these other levels.