It is with a sense of optimism that we write this protection and gender report. With every day that the Syria crisis continues, it becomes more and more apparent that we can no longer work in siloes if the international community is going to be able to respond appropriately to the vast array of protection concerns we are facing in the region.

We write this report and subsequent recommendations:

(1) to help support the work of multiple agencies in strengthening their response, and providing services in ways which respect the different needs of women, men, boys and girls;
(2) to provide agencies with enough information to avoid doing harm;
(3) to ensure that actors are able to mitigate risk of SGBV and other protection concerns immediately.