The Syrian Initiative for Fundamental Rights cautions that current IMF and World Bank engagement risks repeating pre-2011 patterns of fiscal austerity, deregulated privatization, and disregard for governance and equity. The statement calls for a political-economy approach to reform that accounts for distributional impact, conflict sensitivity, and social protection.
The Syrian Initiative for Fundamental Rights (SIFR) welcomes the current engagement between the Syrian transitional government and both the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, aimed at supporting economic recovery in Syria amid a complex transitional phase. However, we express concern regarding the nature and substance of this engagement, particularly in light of statements and reports by international financial institutions that present current economic performance and policies as indicators of recovery and stability. This approach reinforces a recurring pattern of external support for policies framed as “reforms,” which in practice rely on stringent fiscal consolidation, broad price liberalization, tight monetary policy, and an expanded role for privatization in the absence of clear legal and regulatory frameworks. Such conditions risk facilitating the transfer of public assets or investment opportunities to narrow groups without transparency or accountability, while neglecting critical issues of governance, equality, the rule of law, and social protection, including the gendered dimensions of vulnerability and inequality. The concern does not lie with the role of the private sector per se, but rather with unregulated forms of privatization in fragile governance contexts, where they may become instruments for concentrating resources and influence rather than supporting inclusive and sustainable economic recovery.
In a conflict-affected context such as Syria, these policies cannot be considered neutral technical recommendations; rather, they constitute political choices that determine who bears the costs and who reaps the benefits in a reshaped economy. Assessing the “success of reform” cannot be based on narrow macroeconomic indicators —such as achieving a modest fiscal surplus or curbing inflation— while key productive sectors continue to contract or stagnate, purchasing power declines, and social vulnerability widens.
Recent estimates of economic performance indicate that the economy remains well below its pre-conflict levels, with persistent weaknesses in agriculture, industry, and public services. At the same time, the reported fiscal surplus has been achieved in part through subsidy cuts, reductions in public spending and investment, and the shifting of burdens onto households and the productive private sector. This trajectory does not represent sustainable economic recovery, but rather a limited accounting improvement accompanied by increasing social and economic pressures.
Read more on: https://thesifr.org/en/papers/imf-world-bank-engagement-2026-04/