Supporting water access in North-East Syria

In North-East Syria, more than ten years’war combined with the effects of climate change have widely impacted its population’s access to water. The drinking water and irrigation infrastructures have been damaged on a wide scale if not entirely destroyed. Faced to those difficulties, SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL has set up a rehabilitation project supported by the Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI) of the European Union. 

Devastating crises and armed conflict

North-east Syria is particularly affected after being hit by a decade of conflicts. Its infrastructures have been destroyed, plundered and are still suffering from cruel lack of necessary financial and human means when rehabilitation and maintenance needs are so blatant. Significant damage to water stations, pumps, irrigation canals, pipelines and electricity networks has been recordered. 

Although North-East Syria has been stabilized since 2019, though basic services have been restored and even if numerous displaced people have returned home, needs still remain considerable. The exploitation and the maintenance of water systems have been impeded by the lack of lasting financial resources increased by the economic crisis and the lack of equipments.
The consequences of climate change and the geopolitical pressure exerted on water supply add further to the above problems. The resulting water shortage entails numerous risks for the population’s health, their means of subsistence, for agriculture, for food security and social cohesion. 

Supporting and rehabilitating

To face these challenges, SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL has set up a long-term project whose aim consists in meeting the urgent needs as regards the access to water.

After carrying out assessments to target the needs, the teams of SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL there have started their rehabilitation program focused on 17 water plants, 3 irrigation plants, kilometers of irrigation and of drainage canals. Throughout the project the teams have also been helping the local Departments of Water and Irrigation thanks to technical training courses and to supplying equipments that allow the maintenance of the infrastructures. Reinforcing those local capacities is essential to ensure a long-term impact of the project. 

When SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL facilitates access to clean water, close by, at a reasonable price, they meet an urgent need shared by all the people from North-East Syria. Supplying the populations with drinking water is vital for their health as well as for their hygiene. It also allows to prevent diseases caused by water unfit for human consumption. In the same way, supplying irrigation water is essential to farmers in an area widely dependent on its agriculture for its economic and food security. 

For further details about the project carried out by SOLIDARITÉS INTERNATIONAL in North-East Syria with the support of the Foreign Policy Instruments (FPI) of the European Union
>> Improving water access in North East Syria (arcgis.com)

Photo credit © Delil SOULEIMAN
Translation by Maryline Rockemer