Regional Outreach – Gaziantep

Mission Summary

The OSE-Syria Civil society Support Room (CSSR) conducted a regional outreach mission with Syrian civil society to Türkiye from 18 to 20 July 2022 in Gaziantep. These regional visits aim to revive direct communication with actors from the Syrian civil society and share updates related to the CSSR’s work and the political process in a broader sense.

In Gaziantep, the team – comprised of OSE-Syria and its implementing partners – held 24 meetings with a total of 60 civil society interlocutors located in Türkiye and inside Syria which included organizations and networks working on humanitarian aid, development, peace building, women’s issues, human rights in addition to several Syrian think tanks.

These exchanges were important for the OSE-Syria in order to strengthen their understanding of the perspectives from diverse Syrian civil society actors on key topics, relevant to the political process.

Syrian interlocutors briefed on the humanitarian situation in northwestern Syria (NWS), especially protection concerns for women and children in internally displaced persons’ camps and the importance of the continuation of cross-border aid delivery into Syria. The team exchanged views on the implementation of the April 2022 amnesty decree, and on several other topics, including on civic space, women rights, youth, housing, property and land rights, the challenges facing Syrians residing in neighboring host countries, in addition to discussions on administrative decentralization and potential opportunities for working on early recovery among other topics; with the view to promoting a comprehensive political solution, in line with security council resolution 2254 (2015).

The OSE-Syria team briefed the interlocutors on the recent developments of the political process, including on the constitutional committee, the detainees, abductees and missing persons file, humanitarian assistance and early recovery as well as on the CSSR activities.