This paper argues that current policies to liberalize bread and energy prices in Syria do not constitute economic reform in any developmental sense, but rather deepen poverty, undermine food security, and threaten the social legitimacy of the transition. Treating wheat, bread and energy as expenditure items whose subsidies can be cut and prices raised represents a dangerous departure from the social and political significance of food and production. When wheat is priced below cost, bread is governed by market logic, energy by profit, and wages are expected to absorb all these conditions, the outcome is not recovery but a poorer society with less capacity to produce. The Syrian Initiative for Fundamental Rights therefore calls for a transitional social protection approach that guarantees access to bread, energy and housing as basic requirements for a dignified life, while linking support for producers, wages and services to the actual cost of living and poverty lines.
Wheat, bread and energy are fundamental pillars of food and livelihood security in Syria. They cannot be treated as mere budgetary expenditure items to be managed by raising prices and reducing subsidies, irrespective of the social and economic consequences. This paper argues that policies to liberalize bread and energy prices and increase the cost of agricultural production during the transition do not constitute economic reform in any developmental sense. Rather, they deepen poverty and undermine food security and social legitimacy. As such, the paper calls for a transitional social protection approach that guarantees access to bread, energy and housing as basic requirements for a dignified life, while linking support for producers, wages and services to the actual cost of living and poverty lines.
In this context, the Syrian Initiative for Fundamental Rights warns that treating wheat, bread and energy as expenditure items whose subsidies can be cut and prices raised represents a dangerous departure from the social and political significance of food and production in Syria. The legitimacy of a state emerging from a prolonged war is not measured by its ability to raise prices or generate a nominal fiscal surplus, but by its ability to provide food, protect producers and guarantee a minimum level of access to energy, housing and decent work opportunities.
Read the full article here: Syrian Initiative for Fundamental Rights