Syria: Reconstruction Deals Lack Critical Rights Framework [EN/AR]

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Government, Donors, Investors Should Ensure Rebuilding Serves Communities

(Amman) – The Syrian transitional government is signing billions of dollars in reconstruction deals without a human rights framework that would ensure that rebuilding respects, protects, and fulfills the rights of affected people, Human Rights Watch said today.

In March 2026, the transitional government unveiled a national recovery blueprint, and billions of dollars in international pledges for aid, and financing and investment commitments have followed. But the legal frameworks governing reconstruction do not require the government or developers to consult affected communities, including those still displaced, before projects are approved. The process should also require negotiating—instead of imposing—compensation terms and providing an independent mechanism for residents to challenge decisions about their homes and land.

“Syria's reconstruction is progressing slowly, but without a rights framework, it could leave many Syrians with a raw deal,” said Hiba Zayadin, senior Middle East advisor at Human Rights Watch. “The legal framework being finalized now will determine whose homes are rebuilt, whose claims are recognized, and whose voices are heard.”

Human Rights Watch conducted field research in Syria in May 2026, including interviews with residents of Ghadfa village in the Idlib countryside who had returned from displacement camps. Human Rights Watch also interviewed an activist, whose identity is being withheld for their protection, calling for the repeal of Decree 66 and the restoration of property rights in Marota City.

Human Rights Watch reviewed Syrian government statements and documents including President al-Sharaa's March 2026 remarks on reconstruction published by the Syrian Arab News Agency, and the Constitutional Declaration of March 2025. Human Rights Watch also reviewed reports and data from the World Bank, the International Rescue Committee, the International Organization for Migration, UNHCR, OCHA, the Arab Reform Initiative, and The Syria Report.

People returning to their communities are finding homes destroyed, and villages without water, electricity, or health care services. Housing, land, and property claims from the Assad era remain unresolved. Reconstruction projects are being initiated without meaningful participation by affected residents.

In Jobar, a neighborhood east of central Damascus, approximately 95 percent of buildings were destroyed, according to The Syria Report. In Ghadfa, in the Idlib countryside, residents who returned from displacement told Human Rights Watch in May 2026 that they had no running water, functioning electricity grid, adequate sanitation, operating schools, or nearby medical services.

Syria is emerging from more than a decade of conflict, which caused mass devastation to cities, homes, and infrastructure across many parts of the country.

In October 2025, the World Bank estimated physical damage at US$108 billion and average reconstruction costs at $216 billion, with the full range between $140 billion and $345 billion. The transitional government has moved quickly to attract reconstruction investment, successfully restoring diplomatic ties and welcoming foreign capital, as the US and European countries lifted crippling sanctions that had frozen investment for years and impoverished Syrians.

Gulf states have led investment. Saudi Arabia has pledged $6.4 billion across real estate, infrastructure, telecoms, and energy; and together with Qatar, jointly cleared Syria's $15.5 million in World Bank arrears in April 2025, unlocking engagement after 14 years of suspension.Qatar has committed $4 billion, and the UAE's DP World secured a 30-year concession over Tartus port.

The World Bank has since approved over $1 billion in grant-funded projects, and the International Monetary Fund has established a technical cooperation program with Damascus. Among European governments, France, Germany, and to some extent Italy, have emerged as the most active bilateral partners.

The EU, which pledged €620 million (about $713 million) for humanitarian aid and socio-economic recovery in 2026-2027, announced an investment conference in Syria in 2027 and is strengthening its political ties with Syria. EU member states are in a strong position to lead by example and mobilize other donors to ensure that human rights frameworks are strongly anchored in Syria’s reconstruction and recovery.

But as the Global Governance Institute noted in August 2026, pledges and announcements have far outpaced actual investment on the ground, and meaningful disbursements from international creditors will only follow once governance and legal frameworks are in place.

According to a July 2026 report by the International Rescue Committee, over 3.5 million refugees and internally displaced Syrians have returned to their communities since December 2024, but not all returns have been fully voluntary. Many were driven by the deteriorating conditions for displaced people, the end of aid, precarious legal status, and unaffordable rent in places where they were living.

Syria is bound by the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights, which under General Comment 4, defines the right to adequate housing as including guarantees security of tenure, access to services, habitability, and suitable location. It is also bound by the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, which guarantees the right to an effective remedy. Both treaties require rights to be respected without discrimination on grounds including ethnicity and religion.

The UN Basic Principles and Guidelines on Development-Based Evictions establish what consultation, compensation, and due process must look like before any displacement for development purposes. The UN Guiding Principles on Internal Displacement and the Pinheiro Principles on housing, land, and property restitution establish clear standards for how states should manage return and reconstruction in post-conflict settings.

International donors should ensure that their funding supports rights-aligned recovery and does not cause or contribute to violations. Businesses and investors should conduct human rights due diligence before entering reconstruction agreements and throughout their implementation.

“The legal frameworks governing Syria's reconstruction are still being written,” Zayadin said. “That is an opportunity, but only if the international community and the transitional government use it to build protections for affected communities. A durable recovery depends on getting things right.”

Background

In October 2025, the International Organization for Migration found that conditions for Syrians returning to their communities remained fragile, with widespread housing, land, and property disputes, limited access to public services, and pervasive explosive ordnance contamination hampering safe movement and livelihoods.

Halfway through 2026, the UN humanitarian appeal for Syria was just under one-third funded. Since May, the World Food Programme has halved emergency food assistance in Syria, from 1.3 million people to 650,000. About 5.5 million people remain internally displaced, according to the March operational update by UNHCR, the UN refugee agency.

The gap between pledges and delivery has real consequences for rights. While affected residents can in principle pursue individual cases through Syrian courts, the judiciary remains under-resourced and inaccessible for most property disputes, with documentation requirements prohibitive for many returnees. There is no practical avenue to contest reconstruction decisions more broadly, and no specialized grievance mechanism for reconstruction disputes has yet been established.

Some reconstruction is underway. The Al-Rastan Bridge in Homs, a key economic artery linking several Syrian provinces, reopened in June 2026 after rehabilitation financed by the Syria Humanitarian Fund in partnership with the UN Development Program (UNDP). Rashid Bridge over the Euphrates in Raqqa reopened in July 2026 after a four-month reconstr