When Committees Become Communities: Rebuilding Civic Culture in Syrian Cities
Neighbourhood committees in Syrian cities show that recovery is not only about rebuilding infrastructure but rebuilding civic culture. What makes local governance truly sustainable after conflict?
“When the committee is from the community and communicates well with both residents and the administration, the work becomes sustainable, because the data can be updated continuously.” Aleppo, committee member, women
This reflection from a local committee member captures a shift that many post-war recovery efforts struggle to achieve: moving from one-time consultations to continuous civic participation. In several Syrian cities, the Community-Based City Profile approach is not only about producing assessments. It creates neighbourhood committees that become everyday spaces of dialogue, coordination, and shared responsibility.
Rebuilding Civic Culture as Part of Urban Recovery
Urban recovery is not just a technical task focused on services and infrastructure. It also involves rebuilding civic culture: trust between residents and authorities, habits of cooperation and shared responsibility for local decision-making (cooperation within neighbourhoods)
In seven Syrian cities—Aleppo, Hama, Tartous, Lattakia, Idlib, Raqqa, and Kobani—community members developed profiles through a participatory process. Their discussions revealed that recovery is cultural: shaped by trust, representation, and the belief that local voices reach decision-makers.
As one participant noted, “This model ensures inclusive representation for all neighbourhood groups.” In practice, this means women, youth, returnees, and long-term residents come together to discuss shared concerns. These meetings do more than generate data; they create spaces where belonging and responsibility are negotiated in everyday terms.
What is the Community-Based City Profile?
The Community-Based City Profile is designed as a comprehensive and cumulative process that starts at the neighbourhood level. Community committee members work together to develop neighbourhood profiles. These findings are then reviewed and expanded with actors at the city level to verify findings, fill gaps, and develop an overall city profile.
The profile is therefore not just a document. It is a structured process that strengthens participatory governance, raises awareness of civic roles, and supports people to engage in decisions that affect their daily lives.
Neighbourhoods are selected according to defined criteria: geographic representation, demographic diversity, functional diversity (residential, commercial, industrial, central, heritage or touristic areas). The process also considers urban patterns (planned and unplanned areas), the neighbourhood’s history and major transformations such as displacement, damage or reconstruction, level of need, and practical readiness (access and the presence of local partners). This careful selection ensures that the profiles reflect the social and spatial complexity of each city.
Why Local Committees Matter
Local committees are a vital part of the Community-Based City Profile Approach. They act as a bridge between local administration and service organisations, bringing community perspectives into planning and analysis.
Committee members define sustainability as a balance of four interconnected needs. @ Ghada Rifai
Each selected neighbourhood forms at least one committee. Membership aims to reflect geographic representation, social diversity, including gender balance and various age groups. Criteria focus on relevant experience, commitment to participation, and local knowledge.
Across all seven cities, discussions repeatedly returned to questions of identity and belonging. Participants described “multiple belongings” – family, sectarian, local, and professional- that sometimes compete with national belonging. Many expressed how difficult it can be to translate ideas of citizenship into daily practice.
At the same time, members identified shared elements of belonging, such as land, heritage, and the active role of Syrian women in community life. They also emphasised shared values like justice, humanity, and cooperation. These values determine how the committee’s work: they promote transparency, protect participants, rely on consensus and ensure regular consultation with the community.
Reading Sustainability Through Committee Voices
Because committees were built as civic spaces rather than short -term in project structures, a key question quickly emerged: how can they could continue once a project phase ends?
To explore this, 45 participants from the City Profile process across seven Syrian cities compared four governance alternatives
- Civil society–facilitated committees
- committees embedded within municipal structures with civil society support
- sector-based specialised committees
- temporary task forces for early recovery
The participants included committee members and local implementation teams. Their responses reflect lived experience rather than abstract institutional design.
Continuity, Inclusion, and Access: The Real Pillars of Sustainability
The overall scores were relatively close, especially between the second and the third option. No single model clearly dominated. This suggests that sustainability depends less on a specific institutional form and more on certain underlying conditions.
Participants valued models that “ensure inclusive representation for all neighbourhood groups” and “ensure the committee’s work is sustainable in the long term.” For them, sustainability begins with continuity and inclusion.
They also linked sustainability to power and access. Respondents supported alternatives that would “have a strong and direct impact on municipal decisions on services” and provide “legitimacy and high access to decision-makers.” As one comment explains, this can create “a small hope that their voices may reach” the administration
Several responses describe committees as a bridge: “the committee plays a mediator role between people and the municipality… which strengthens trust gradually—especially if there is continuous communication.”
At the same time, members were explicit about risks: “The biggest risk is political influence or lack of transparency, ” one participant warned. Without clear standards and mechanisms, committees can be politicised or captured.
Temporary early-recovery structures were recognised for speed and ability to achieve quick and tangible results, such as simple road or lighting repairs. However, participants generally saw speed alone as insufficient when weighed against long-term legitimacy and continuity. One statement notes that a model can “lead to scattered and uncoordinated efforts among committees and diverse actors,” reinforcing the importance of coordination mechanisms.
Civic Culture is Rebuilt in Practice
Taken together, these comparisons show that committee members define sustainability as a balance of four interconnected needs: inclusive representation, long-term continuity, real influence on municipal decisions, and protection from political capture through transparency and governance rules.
What emerges is not a single perfect model, but a shared understanding. Sustainability is both institutional and cultural. Committees endure not only because they are formally recognised, but because they become habitual spaces of cooperation—places where residents regularly meet, update information, and negotiate everyday issues.
In this sense, neighbourhood committees are less about structures on paper. They are spaces where civic culture is rebuilt in practice.
