With colleagues at ODI Global, I built national and governorate-level population scenarios for Syria to 2045. They start from the UN’s 2024 World Population Prospects and adjust for refugee return and internal displacement (UNHCR, IOM DTM), which the UN’s pre-December 2024 assumptions could not capture. In 2045, Syria’s population ranges from 35.4 million (pessimistic) to 40.4 million (optimistic), with 37.8 million in the neutral case; Rural Damascus is projected to become the largest population centre. These are planning tools, not forecasts.
Why it matters for water and electricity. Demand for urban water and electricity follows where people live and return. Syria was in structural water deficit before the war, and much of its water and sanitation infrastructure has been damaged. Reconstruction sized for pre-war or current populations risks building in the wrong places or at the wrong scale. The neutral scenario fed the report’s water and electricity demand modelling.
Full report · Briefing papers: urban water and sanitation, electricity
Our 2026 report argues that Yemen’s apparent stalemate is not static: environmental risks are intensifying and feeding the structural drivers of conflict, through the conflict economy, the securitisation of natural resource governance and the declining legitimacy of the internationally recognised government. There are openings: in rural Taizz, women and young people have gained influence and adopted climate-resilient practices. But these shifts are socially transformative and economically fragile, and could be reversed. My contribution was methodological: the systematic review design, the interview questionnaires and the gender and social inclusion approach.