Can economic and social support mitigate intimate partner violence, challenge harmful gender attitudes, and improve household welfare in Syria?

Evidence and lessons from the Building Local Resilience in Syria Violence Against Women and Girls prevention pilots

Executive Summary

Syria’s prolonged conflict has deepened poverty, food insecurity, and social strain. Women play a critical role in agriculture and household welfare but face persistent barriers to accessing resources and exercising their agency. Economic hardship, shifting gender roles, and entrenched patriarchal norms have increased risks of intimate partner violence (IPV), including economic IPV, where partners control resources, forbid employment, or refuse financial support. Understanding what works to prevent IPV, particularly economic IPV, in this context is both urgent and complex.

To address the challenges, the Building Local Resilience in Syria (BLRS) Programme, funded by FCDO, piloted two projects providing economic support combined with couples’ training curricula. The pilots aim to improve spousal communication, promote shared decision-making, and challenge harmful gender attitudes, with the goal of mitigating violence against women and girls (VAWG) and improving household economic outcomes. In one of the pilots, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (FAO) in partnership with the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA) implemented an adapted version of Economic and Social Empowerment (EA$E) programme in Homs and Rural Damascus. In the other pilot,  CARE and Mercy Corps, under the Syria Resilience Initiative (SRI), implemented an adapted version of the Indashyikirwa programme in Al-Hasakah. Both projects were implemented between 2023 and 2025.

To evaluate these pilots, ISDC conducted cluster randomised controlled trials (cRCT) to assess whether adding couples’ curricula to economic support improves wellbeing, fosters more positive spousal relations, reduces physical, emotional and economic IPV, and translates gains into meaningful economic outcomes in the short-term. The evaluations included 610 couples in Al-Hasakah with a pure randomisation cRCT and 581 couples in Homs and Rural Damascus with a restricted randomisation cRCT. This brief presents findings and recommendations relative to the BLRS programme strategy’s guiding questions.

BLRS Core Question 1: Are women and girls exercising greater agency over their bodies and lives?

BLRS Core Question 2: Is there greater support in targeted communities for women safely and sustainably accessing income generation?

BLRS Core Question 3: Are beneficiaries, especially women, earning more income to help meet their basic needs?