MEDirections’ Syria Initiative aims to analyse the key local trends and dynamics of the country’s multi-layered conflict, to generate a better understanding of the challenges and opportunities for post-conflict stabilisation and peace-building. The Initiative seeks to inform policymakers and practitioners in Europe and the Middle East and to promote knowledge sharing between Syrian and European analysts. It has a strong fieldwork component. It is based on a close partnership between the EUI/MEDirections and Syrian analysts and the research track includes mentorship for junior Syrian researchers.

This Initiative  started in 2016 and is led by Professor Agnes Favier. It  hosts different research projects, publishes various types of publications in English and Arabic, including Policy Briefs and more in-depth Research Reports and organises academic events (roundtables, webinars,annual conferences).

The research focuses on four main themes: transformations in local governance and networks of power in a changing national context; the war economy and its impact on future reconstruction; the impact of external interventions on local dynamics social, economic, and political transformation in war and post- war situations.

Project Director of the Syria Initiative: Agnès Favier

Research Team: So far, more than 15 researchers have contributed to the different research projects

Management: Donato Di Bartolomeo

Syrian Trajectories: Challenges and Opportunities for Peacebuilding (July 2022-June 2023)

The Syrian Trajectories: Challenges and Opportunities for Peacebuilding project is funded by the European Union and Germany as part of the Syria Peace Initiative implemented by the GIZ. The project aims to generate original and essential knowledge, as well as informed analysis rationally congruent with emerging challenges to peace and post-conflict recovery in Syria to support programmatic, operational, and strategic decision-making.

Using filed-based research undertaken mostly by Syrian academics, researchers and analysts, the project deliberates on themes that emanate from the unsteady but deadlocked military stalemate that emerged in Syria. This includes, but not limited to, control and power dynamics in areas controlled by the Syrian regime, active rebels, and de facto authorities, institutional features and functions, state elites and informal power structures, underlying causes of violence and instability, and the role played by local and external actors to contribute to the fulfilment of basic needs in areas of limited statehood.

---

---

---

---

Donors

Wartime and Post-Conflict in Syria Project (October 2018-July 2022)

The “Wartime and Post-Conflict in Syria” (WPCS) project was funded by the European Union and implemented in partnership with the Center for Operational Analysis and Research.

WPCS provided operational and strategic analysis of prospects, challenges, trends and policy options in wartime and in preparation for post-conflict in Syria.

WPCS focused on policy and response-relevant themes, to include key actors and dynamics of local governance; the war economy; and regional interventions and their impact on local socio-political dynamics.

For more information about WPCS, please visit the project’s page in English and Arabic and check out the infographic below:

---