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Addressing Syria's Entrepreneurship Skills Gap
5 min readMay 2026
New research explores how developing entrepreneurial and digital skills can empower youth and drive economic revival in post-conflict Syria.
Damascus, 2026 – Startup Syria has released its latest comprehensive policy brief detailing the critical need to scale human capital and business competencies across the country.
The report, titled Addressing Syria's Entrepreneurship Skills Gap, highlights how closing the skills gap can prevent a lost generation, reduce youth unemployment, and lay the groundwork for a bottom-up recovery.
Key Findings from the report
- •Syria's population is exceptionally young, with a median age of just 23 years old.
- •A profound cultural shift has occurred, with the percentage of Syrians viewing entrepreneurship as essential jumping from 26% in 2015 to over 80% in 2024.
- •In 2020, only 1% of Syria's humanitarian aid budget was directed toward livelihood and skills programs.
- •Startup Syria's 2025 Catalyst Bootcamp successfully trained 40 emerging community leaders from 20 different Syrian cities to activate local startup activity.
Top challenges facing skills development
- •Severe educational disruption caused by years of war destroying schools and universities.
- •Massive brain drain depleting the local pool of mentors, teachers, and experienced entrepreneurs.
- •A dominant NGO landscape relying on short-term funding and entry-level workshops, creating a lack of advanced scaling support and private sector involvement.
- •An acute shortage of higher-order business skills including strategic planning, financial management, and growth marketing.
Closing Syria's entrepreneurship skills gap is critical for reducing unemployment, leveraging the talents of a young population, and laying the groundwork for economic revival in a post-conflict Syria.
— Addressing Syria's Entrepreneurship Skills Gap Report
Recommendations
- •Integrating entrepreneurship and digital skills into national secondary and university education curricula.
- •Funding inclusive, multi-year training programs and supporting the creation of rural innovation hubs.
- •Developing accessible microfinance options and startup loan products backed by risk guarantees.
- •Coordinating a national network of incubators and mapping ecosystem gaps on an annual basis.
- •Engaging the vast Syrian diaspora for structured virtual mentorship, skills transfer, and targeted co-investment.
For more details on building local talent and capacity, please download the full report above.
