Fayez Al-mokdad* ⁽¹⁾, Wael Habib ⁽²⁾ and Hani Hasson ⁽¹⁾

 (1). Socio-Economics Administration, General Commission of Scientific Agricultural Researches (GCSAR), Damascus, Syria.

(2₎ Socio-Economics Section, Lattakia Center of Scientific Agricultural Researches (GCSAR), Lattakia, Syria.

(*Corresponding author: dr.Fayez Almokdad. E-Mail: Deepmokdad@yahoo.com ).

Received: 12/05/2020         Accepted: 31/05/202

Abstract

The research aimed to highlight the status of poverty in Syria during the crisis, using secondary data collected during 2017 and applying quantitative and descriptive analysis methods. The results showed an increase in poverty rate during the crisis, estimated at 45% in 2016 compared to 28% in 2010, and this percentage was higher in rural areas to reach nearly 60%. It was found that 83.4% of Syrians are below the upper-moderate poverty line, adopted by Syrian government to measure poverty, compared to 28% in (2010). This increase in poverty rates was accompanied by a decrease in per capita GDP from 72.5 thousand SYP in 2011 to less than 27 thousand SYP in 2016. In parallel, prices has doubled by about 6 times the increase in income. This situation led to an increase in the percentage of food-insecure people to about 67.2% of population in 2016. The results also showed that poverty could be reduced by 1.1%, 3.3% and 1.45%, by increasing local investment (both public and private) and government expenditure on education and health by 10%, respectively. While the increase in production costs by 10% may lead to increase poverty rate by 3.5%. Whereas, poverty rate increase by 1.2%, when unemployment increase by 10%, assuming that other factors remain unchanged. On the other hand, the value of the elasticity of each of the studied variables was weighted by the percentage of poverty in rural and urban areas. The increase in government spending on education and health and the increase in investment in rural areas by 10% would lead to a reduction in rural poverty by 3.45%, 1.53% and 1.15%, respectively. In addition, reducing unemployment and agricultural production costs by 10% will reduce rural poverty by 1.33% and 3.70%, respectively, while the effect will be less in urban areas.

Key words: poverty, food security, per capita income, Syrian crisis, macroeconomic indicators.

Full paper in Arabic: PDF