Eight years of bloody civil war have uprooted half of the population and claimed countless lives. Syria is in ruins. For years now, we were seriously asking ourselves: what will happen after the war? What will the future of Syria look like and what factors are most likely to influence it?
In trying to find answers to
these questions were discovering that most analyses that try to answer these pressing
questions had one obvious blind spot: they are being written by Western policy
experts. By consecutively travelling to the region over the last years in order
to talk
to those who actually used to live through the war in Syria and were lucky
enough to escape this humanitarian disaster. This way we discovered that it is their
voices, fears, opinions, hopes, anger, insights and dreams that should be
included in policy papers that have been piling up in our inboxes.
So… we decided to do exactly that to give policy its much needed edge back.
Nothing more, and nothing less.
What we came up with is a true experiment: a multi-stakeholder scenario analysis that produces policy recommendations for post-conflict Syria. that equally gives civil society on the ground and in Europe as well as distinguished experts an integral part in the process. In doing so, Syrian Futures challenges traditional policy making with a much needed and refreshing approach that gives voice to perspectives that have remained unheard.
For more information on Shabka’s Syrian Futures project visit our dedicated website here.
