(Beirut) – The Syrian transitional government’s stringent application of registration and operational requirements on aid groups is hampering their ability to scale up operations, Human Rights Watch said today. While the authorities have signaled a willingness to engage with international organizations, bureaucratic and administrative hurdles continue to impede efforts to address Syria’s escalating humanitarian crisis.
Under the Assad government, the authorities tightly controlled humanitarian operations, forcing international nongovernmental groups to coordinate and obtain approvals for their operations through state-affiliated organizations, a system that allowed for manipulation of aid for political purposes. Independent organizations seeking to maintain a principled operational space faced severe bureaucratic hurdles, restrictions on access, and government interference, undermining their ability to operate effectively and limiting partnerships with Syrian national organizations. Despite the collapse of the Assad government, some of the same restrictions remain in place or the new authorities have reinforced them.
“The transitional government has an opportunity to dismantle the restrictive framework that hindered independent humanitarian work for years,” said Adam Coogle, deputy Middle East director at Human Rights Watch. “Instead of reinstating practices that undermine neutrality and efficiency, the authorities should be prioritizing getting all available assistance to those in need.”
Human Rights Watch spoke to six aid workers between February and April 2025, all of whom highlighted the reintroduction of previous registration regulations. These rules require independent groups to work under an “umbrella system,” which gives vast authority to a designated “national partner” that effectively functions as a third-party regulatory body. On April 27, Human Rights Watch contacted the Foreign Ministry to request details about these measures and their impact on humanitarian operations, but had not received a response as of the publication date.
In the past, the Assad government used the same system. It required nearly all international groups to operate under the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC) or the Syria Trust for Development (STD), which are both government-linked entities that played a central role in coordinating aid efforts. This, at times, allowed for aid distribution to be channeled according to political priorities rather than strictly humanitarian needs.
Human Rights Watch documented that, under the Assad government, Syrian security services regularly engaged with these entities and could access their beneficiary lists and programming at any time. This system severely constrained independent organizations, limiting their operational autonomy, reducing transparency in aid allocation, and enabling government interference in donor-funded relief efforts.
As part of broader governance reforms, the Syrian caretaker government, which governed the country until the transitional government was sworn in on March 29, introduced some restructuring to these key entities. It replaced Khaled Hboubati as head of SARC with Mohammad Hazem Baqlah, who previously led its volunteer medical services. It renamed the Syria Trust for Development to the Syrian Development Organization (SDO), dissolved its board of trustees, and appointed a committee to take over its financial and administrative functions.
However, as one senior aid worker on the ground in Damascus told Human Rights Watch, the problem lies not with those entities, but with the system itself, which would most likely continue to compromise neutrality and efficiency and restrict operational independence.
“In the early days [after the fall of the previous government], we were optimistic that [humanitarian] operations will be more effective,” the humanitarian worker said. “But day after day, it turns out this is not the case.”
Humanitarian workers also told Human Rights Watch that transitional authorities have imposed a reregistration requirement on all organizations operating in Syria, even those that have maintained humanitarian operations on the ground for years and decades. Humanitarian workers said the onerous requirements are even more complex than those the Assad government imposed, requiring aid groups to divulge minute details about their operations and sources of funding.
The Syrian transitional government should prioritize the delivery of impartial and effective humanitarian aid by removing the restrictive systems that limit operational flexibility and compromise humanitarian principles, Human Rights Watch said. UN agencies and donor states should also ensure transparency and accountability in humanitarian programming.
“The humanitarian crisis continues to worsen, and without immediate action to remove arbitrary restrictions, the suffering will only grow for Syrians across the country,” Coogle said.
