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Reconstruction-lite
UN introduces Early Recovery Trust Fund

After a long wait, the UN has finally unveiled to donors and partners its Early Recovery Strategy 2024-28 document, calling for the creation of an Early Recovery Trust Fund (ERTF). This new fund will be based in Damascus and will operate under the direct leadership of the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator (RC.) Key features, it is claimed, will be greater “operational flexibility” and “longer timeframes.”

ERTF’s creation started with one man: Martin Griffiths. As head of OCHA, he seized on last year’s earthquake to reach out to Bashar Assad and convince him of the need for a genuine give-and-take process. According to informed sources, early recovery was much discussed. Griffiths is said to have suggested that a new fund would attract Gulf money as it would have fewer red lines than the Syria Humanitarian Fund (SHF) and the Syria Cross-border Humanitarian Fund (SCHF) that support activities in line with the UN’s Humanitarian Response Plan (HRP.) 

Efforts to empower the Damascus-based RCs over control of early recovery assistance actually date back to 2016/17. They‘ve been consistently pushed by the UN country team (CT) ever since. In 2019, the UN system underwent reforms that separated the positions of RC and UNDP country representative. This stripped the RCs of significant leverage as they no longer held sway over UNDP funds. Adam Abdelmoula, however, who was appointed RC in May 2023, is a strong advocate of introducing a more developmental model to early recovery, which chimes with the ERTF’s formula. | continue reading

What Trump will do in the Middle East
A conversation with Joel Rayburn

To learn more about the Assad Regime Anti-Normalisation Act and what sort of Middle East policy can be expected from the next US administration should Donald Trump win, Syria in Transition spoke with Joel Rayburn. Mr Rayburn is a retired US Army officer and historian who served as US Special Envoy for Syria from 2018-21. | continue reading

New acts at the ostracisation arena
Norwegian chargé d’affaires and DRC in Damascus

The scale of atrocities committed in Syria means that a return to normal relations with the Assad regime is out of the question. The only acceptable way forward is a genuine political process that ends the regime’s violence. This has been the stance of Western and Arab countries since early in the conflict. From the start, however, ostracisation of the regime was fragile because while “the regime” was considered an enemy, “the state” was not. When the regime has kidnapped the state and holds it hostage, it is close to impossible to ostracise one and enable the other. Practical necessities stemming from humanitarian commitments meant that working with state institutions like ministries and local authorities could not be avoided. The West found itself in a paradoxical position of being the main driver for ostracisation but also the main provider of humanitarian assistance. Ironically, it is Western humanitarian assistance that enables the regime via “the state” to provide a minimum of services, which is the enabling condition that underpins its rule. That is not an argument against humanitarian assistance, but a reminder of a constant tension in the West’s Syria response. 

As ostracisation consumed so much diplomatic and bureaucratic capacity, time was not on its side. | continue reading

Rise and decline of Tayy
One tribe’s fortunes reveals much about northeast Syria

The tribe of Tayy has a long and illustrious past. In the early 7th Century, they supplanted the Lakhmids as rulers of al-Hira (in Iraq’s present-day Najaf province), and with the arrival of Islam they joined in the Arab conquest of Persia. The tribe even produced Hatim al-Tayi, a poet renowned in Arabic literature for his chivalry and generosity. Today, the Tayy are found in Qamishli and its environs, living from agriculture and animal husbandry. Under the Assads, their chiefs were granted privileges: land and loans from state-run banks, and seats in the Peasants’ Union and the People’s Assembly (parliament). This was standard Ba’ath Party operating procedure when it came to co-opting tribal elites. 

The Tayy’s fortunes took an upturn with the March 2004 “Kurdish intifada” in Qamishli. A football riot between Arabs from Deir Ezzor who chanted pro-Saddam slogans in the stadium, infuriating  local Kurdish supporters of the home team, developed into a full-scale revolt. The local Ba'ath Party headquarters was burnt to the ground and the statue of Hafiz Assad torn down, much as Saddam’s in Baghdad had been a year before. The regime responded swiftly: a detachment from Maher Assad’s 4th Division was flown in and took charge of the security response, and the Tayy were recruited into the paramilitary Ba’ath Battalions where they served as auxiliary troops. The crackdown left at least 30 Kurds dead and 160 wounded. The Tayy deny that they had any hand in the killing, claiming that their role was confined to beating up Kurds and looting their shops.| continue reading

Must try harder
How Syrian think tanks can up their game

For Arabs, the think tank has become familiar thanks to the TV news media. The sheer volume of televised punditry by “political analysts” and “strategic experts” introduced the markaz dirasat as the go-to for non-official commentary on the news. In Syria, the emergence of the homegrown think tank is one of few favourable outcomes of the conflict. Prior to 2011, there was only the Damascus-based Sharq Centre that was considered reputable. Now there are at least six: The Day After, Etana, Harmoon, Jusoor, Omran, and the Syrian Center for Policy Research. This growth has largely been the work of opposition-leaning Syrians who identified a Western need for information and “safe” interlocutors and catered for it by setting up NGOs that issue research on political, military, and economic matters, and hold regular workshops and seminars. 

Syrian think tanks, supported by Western donors as a branch of civil society, have developed in a manner similar to those in Iraq, modelling themselves on the likes of Brookings, Carnegie, and Chatham House. Aspirations to Western standards – and Western funding – can of course be a driver for improving quality; but whether this is happening is open to question. | continue reading