Job Description
Roles & Responsibilities
The question of Syrian return has gained renewed prominence across the region following shifts in the political and security landscape since late 2024. After more than a decade of protracted displacement, the Syria crisis remains one of the largest globally, with over 6.1 million Syrian refugees hosted primarily in neighboring countries, including approximately 2.9 million in T rkiye, 755,000 in Lebanon, and 611,000 in Jordan . Since December 2024, there has been a significant increase in return movements, largely spontaneous and occurring under evolving and often uncertain conditions. As of early 2026, estimates indicate that over 1.5 million Syrians have returned to Syria from neighboring countries, primarily from T rkiye, Lebanon, and Jordan. Of these: • Over 500,000 returns have been recorded from T rkiye alone • Approximately 180,000 returns from Jordan • Hundreds of thousands have returned from Lebanon, including over 500,000 departures reported in 2025 and due to the recent escalation in Lebanon More broadly, over one million refugees have returned from neighboring countries since late 2024, alongside nearly two million internally displaced persons (IDPs) returning within Syria. Projections suggest that millions more may return in the coming years, underscoring the urgency of understanding return dynamics. Despite these movements, returns are taking place in a context where 16.7 million people inside Syria still require humanitarian assistance, and where infrastructure, services, and protection systems remain severely strained. Evidence indicates that many returns are not necessarily driven by improved conditions in Syria alone, but also by increasing pressures in host countries, including economic hardship, restrictive policies, reduced assistance, and rising social tensions. While the scale of return is growing, there remains a critical gap in understanding the gendered dimensions of return decision-making, experiences, and outcomes. Existing data and policy discussions often treat return as a household or population-level phenomenon, without adequately capturing how gender norms, roles, and power relations shape who decides, who moves, under what conditions, and with what consequences. Women, men, girls, and boys experience displacement and return differently. Gender intersects with age, disability, marital status, legal status, caregiving roles, and access to resources, shaping: • Return intentions and aspirations • Exposure to risks and protection concerns • Access to livelihoods, services, and documentation • Reintegration outcomes and long-term sustainability Importantly, emerging evidence suggests that many return decisions are not fully voluntary, but rather shaped by structural pressures, including: • declining access to income and services in host countries, • insecurity related to legal status and documentation, • social and political pressure to return, • and misinformation or lack of reliable information about conditions inside Syria. At the same time, there is limited systematic evidence on the lived experiences of returnees, particularly from a gender perspective. Questions remain around: • how return affects intra-household dynamics and decision-making power, • how gender roles shift post-return, • and whether return leads to improved safety, dignity, and resilience for different groups. Given the scale of ongoing and anticipated return movements, there is an urgent need for a regional, gender-responsive analysis that captures both: • The perspectives of Syrians who have already returned, and • Those who are considering or planning return from host countries. This study, covering Jordan, Lebanon, T rkiye, and Syria, aims to fill this gap by generating evidence on the gendered drivers, risks, decision-making processes, and reintegration outcomes of return. The findings will support more informed, rights-based, and gender-responsive approaches to policy, programming, and advocacy, ensuring that return processes align with principles of voluntariness, safety, dignity, and sustainability. In addition, there is a need to better understand how displacement itself may have reshaped gender norms, roles, and individual agency.
Purpose and Objectives of the Study
This study aims to generate evidence on the gendered drivers, decision-making processes, risks, and reintegration outcomes of Syrian return across Jordan, Lebanon, T rkiye, and Syria, in order to inform gender-responsive policy, programming, and advocacy, with a focus on how power, gender norms, and control over resources shape people s ability to make decisions about return, mobility, and their future. Specifically, the study will:
- Examine how gender norms, roles, and intra-household power relations influence return intentions and decisions, including who decides, under what conditions, and to what extent decisions are voluntary**, as well as how perceived trade-offs related to safety, livelihoods, dignity, and personal freedoms influence these decisions.
- Assess differentiated risks faced by women, men, girls, and boys in relation to return, including exposure to GBV, movement restrictions, forced recruitment, child protection risks, and social stigma.
- Analyze how gender affects access to civil documentation, housing, land and property (HLP), livelihoods, basic services, and mobility both in shaping return decisions and in post-return reintegration.
- Evaluate the extent to which returns are safe, voluntary, and dignified, and how return impacts safety, economic security, social roles, and well-being across different population groups, including potential changes in agency, autonomy, and mobility, particularly for women and girls.
- Provide practical, gender-responsive recommendations to inform humanitarian and development programming, advocacy priorities, and policy engagement on Syrian return at national and regional levels.
Scope of Work
This study will be conducted at a regional level , covering Jordan, Lebanon, T rkiye, and Syria , and will generate both comparative regional analysis and country-specific insights on gendered dimensions of Syrian return based on primary information gathering. The study will include:
- Syrians who have already returned to Syria, and
- Syrians currently residing in host countries who are considering, discussing, or planning return.
As part of the assignment, the consultant/team will be responsible for:
- Refining the research framework Further develop and refine the research questions , ensuring they capture gendered drivers, decision-making processes, risks, and reintegration outcomes across contexts.
- Designing a context-appropriate methodology Propose and apply a mixed-methods, gender-sensitive, and protection-informed research approach, combining: