Syria: Cash and Markets Snapshot for Northern Syria (July 2021)

INTRODUCTION

The humanitarian situation for households across Northwest Syria (NWS) and Northeast Syria (NES) remains severe. Periodic uncertainty over the potential non-renewal of the cross-border resolution has added to the protracted nature and contextual shifts in the crisis. As such, there has been an increasing interest from humanitarian actors to investigate alternative modalities of humanitarian assistance such as cash and voucher assistance (CVA). Humanitarian actors are exploring both new cash-based programmes as well as expanding the scope of existing cash-based programmes.

The data snapshot aims to aggregate existing REACH data and select third party sources that relates to the aspects of implementing cash-based programming. The snapshot presents analyses on the pooled data across three key categories:

1. Data insights relating to beneficiary aspects of cash programming, such as beneficiary modality preferences and needs.

2. Data insights relating to market aspects of cash programming, such as market functionality, commodity quality and availability, and capacity and liquidity of financial service providers.

3. Data insights relating to potential issues of implementing cash programming such as inflation, inadequate product quality and availability, and restrictions on the use of some currencies.