Type: Report

Date: September 24, 2025

Summary

The Syrian civil service is currently ineffective and unresponsive, suffering from a critical lack of strategic and policy functions, which leads to paralysis, recurring mistakes, and contradictory actions. Additionally, a fragmented identity and poor communication among civil servants from diverse backgrounds hinder collaboration and trust. The report highlights that despite significant human capital and a shared desire for the Syrian state to succeed, the collective is not functioning well due to these two main sources of dysfunction.

Key findings:

• Building a Strategy and Policy Function: This is crucial to translate government priorities into coherent plans and enable effective action, even without full trust among various groups. The focus should be on fixing the system rather than solely relying on individual skills or motivations.

• Creating a Unified Syrian Civil Service Identity: It is essential to foster a shared identity and common purpose among civil servants from different backgrounds (long-standing, new entrants, diaspora, and those from NW Syria) to overcome confusion, mistrust, and missed opportunities arising from their differing expectations and working styles.

• Role of New Entrants: New entrants have the potential to bridge information gaps between internal and external perspectives.

The report also identifies pervasive challenges such as endemic corruption, severe capacity gaps, and structural flaws, alongside significant opportunities in human capital, structural reform, and digital transformation. It details how different groups within and outside the civil service perceive each other and how they can work better together, advocating for structured platforms, targeted training, and clear coordination mechanisms to leverage strengths and bridge gaps. Ultimately, new entrants are seen as having the potential to bridge the information gap between internal and external perspectives due to their exposure to both.