It also underscored the urgent need for a rapid economic recovery to help reverse the decades of progress that were lost as a result of the year civil war. Poverty has reached alarming levels, with the national poverty rate soaring from 33 percent before the war to 90 percent.
Extreme poverty has also skyrocketed, with 66 percent of the population now affected, up from just 11 percent prior to the conflict.
Three out of four people in the country rely on humanitarian aid and are in urgent need of support for critical aspects of life such as healthcare, education, employment, food security and housing.
The country also has one of the highest unemployment rates in the world, with one in four Syrians jobless. Energy production has plummeted by 80 percent, with power plants and transmission lines heavily damaged.
These failures in basic services exacerbate poverty levels and block any meaningful path toward recovery. The UNDP report also highlighted the devastating loss of life during the war, and the decline in health infrastructure. Nearly , Syrians died during the conflict, and , were forcibly disappeared, their whereabouts still unknown. Meanwhile, the collapse of the healthcare system has exacerbated the crisis; a third of all medical facilities have been damaged and almost half of ambulance services are no longer operational.
