The Current Column

Social cohesion and economic participation

Cash-for-work as an instrument of reconstruction in Syria

Zintl, Tina / Markus Loewe
The Current Column (2025)

Bonn: German Institute of Development and Sustainability (IDOS), The Current Column of 17 March 2025

Bonn, 17 March 2025. After over 50 years of Assad's rule and almost 14 years of violent conflict, Syria lacks almost everything: food, work, health care, functioning infrastructure, housing and not least trust. The recent atrocities against the Alawite minority show how quickly distrust between members of different population groups and former conflict parties can erupt into violence again. Before physical reconstruction can begin, a new social contract needs to be forged between the main actors. Interim President Ahmad al-Sharaa has also emphasised how important such a social contract is for balancing the different interests. Without it, fighting may resume at any time and destroy the newly built infrastructure.

However, a new social contract will only hold if the economic and social situation of all inhabitants improves rapidly and they feel that there are prospects for the future. According to a UN report, even with robust growth rates, Syria will not regain its pre-war gross domestic product (GDP) level for another 50 years. There is a chicken-and-egg problem here: economic reconstruction requires a minimum level of political stability, which in turn depends on an improved humanitarian situation.

Cash-for-work programmes can help to resolve this dilemma, as they address both sides of the problem. They are employment measures with a triple dividend: Firstly, they help remove debris, rebuild schools, hospitals and roads and improve ’green infrastructure’ such as irrigation and reforestation. Secondly, they create jobs, income and social protection in a country in which 90 per cent of people live in poverty and which recently saw the dismissal of numerous civil servants, including many Alawites. Thirdly, they enable participants to learn simple craft skills and teamwork, which is immensely important to support an entire lost generation that has received almost no schooling or vocational education. Moreover, the programmes can enhance the self-worth, self-organisation skills and capacity for self-reflection of the participants.

At the same time, cash-for-work programmes also help strengthen social cohesion and reintegrate ex-combatants. Social divides can be bridged by people of different religious denominations and ethnic groups and members of previously opposing conflict parties working together to rebuild the country. Involving the local population in planning which infrastructure to reconstruct also helps. Moreover, women can be empowered by defining gender quotas or having parts of projects carried out predominantly by women. In view of the new Sunni Muslim-dominated interim government, this could be particularly important to enable women to take up paid work despite traditional gender roles. Another advantage for social cohesion is that cash-for-work programmes can also be set up by local organisations without the direct involvement of central government.

Cash-for-work programmes also stimulate the local economy, because participants use the majority of their wages to make purchases in the neighbourhood, while the people selling these goods in turn spend this income locally, thus recycling the additional purchasing power several times. The effect can be magnified if construction materials used in the programmes are purchased locally too.

In the long term, cash-for-work programmes could even lay the foundation for a national social register and a modern national job centre if they use digital technologies right from the start in order to prepare for the participants and other jobseekers to (re)enter the regular labour market.

Even though cash-for-work schemes incur higher costs than other welfare programmes due to the necessary planning and materials and the participants are often only employed for a short period, the effort and expense is worth it: as emphasised in the World Bank report Building for Peace, it is equally important to restore the social fabric and re-establish trust – a country’s ‘software’ – as it is to rebuild the physical infrastructure – its ‘hardware’ – during the reconstruction of war-torn countries. German development cooperation has already gained valuable experience with cash-for-work in Jordan, Lebanon and Turkey. Whether in Syria or Gaza, Germany should draw on this experience and invest the necessary funds.

Three months after the fall of Assad, the enormous challenges facing the new leadership are becoming increasingly clear. Bringing peace to the country and reconciliation between population groups requires economic, social and political participation. Cash-for-work can be an important part of the solution, supporting both economic reconstruction and the emergence of a new social contract and, in doing so, generating considerable synergies.