The earthquakes affected 11 provinces in the southern and southeastern parts of Türkiye, killing approximately 50,000 people and destroying around 298,000 buildings (OCHA 17/05/2023). 

The affected provinces were home to 14 million people, including around 1.8 million Syrian refugees (IOM 06/03/2023). 

Five weeks after the two earthquakes, severe flooding hit Adiyaman and Sanliurfa, making it even more difficult to access affected areas and provide humanitarian support (ACAPS 25/03/2023). 

The earthquakes have affected approximately nine million people and forced about three million to relocate.

In Northwest Syria, the earthquakes killed 5,900 people, injured more than 12,000, damaged at least 10,600 buildings, and destroyed 1,870 (OCHA 28/04/2023). 

The earthquakes struck a part of Northwest Syria most affected by the conflict, as well as Gaziantep in southern Türkiye, a key hub of the humanitarian response to Northwest Syria. 

The funding raised by the DEC enabled an opportunity to implement a transformational humanitarian response for Türkiye-Syria Earthquake Appeal. Save the Children, Humanitarian Leadership Academy (HLA), Alameda, The Innovation Hive, Collaborative Cash Delivery Network (CCD), and our external partners are delivering projects under SHIFT programme to support this response.

We have worked in Gaziantep in Türkiye, and Amman in Jordan delivering our capacity strengthening trainings for local responders and staff from the Save the Children Türkiye Country Office. 

By explicitly targeting these local humanitarian actors with a wide range of humanitarian experience and expertise, we have been able to ensure that different aspects of the response (technical expertise, senior leaders, volunteers, civil society organisations) are strengthened. 

Due to safety and access issues, we delivered additional training sessions for local partners in Türkiye and Syria remotely.

ACAPS are an independent analysis-provider helping humanitarian workers, influencers, fundraisers, and donors make better-informed decisions and respond more effectively to disasters by providing timely and independent needs analysis, data, training, and methodological tools while advocating a more evidence-based response to crises.​

ACAPS have created and published analytical products and datasets to support the response. During the first six months of the response, ACAPS produced 5 Flash analyses, 4 Thematic Analyses, 3 Anticipatory analysis and datasets to enable a more evidence-based, localised response and ensure that humanitarian assistance reaches those most in need.

Alameda is an international institute for collective research rooted in contemporary social struggles. They provide research funding, publish research, and share learnings to steer political and theoretical debates on the critical challenges of our time.

Alameda started a strategic research project on the engagement in labour markets of Turkish and Syrian people directly affected by the earthquake. The aim of the project is to improve understanding of the contextual socio-economic challenges faced by those displaced due to the earthquake. This will be done in partnership with researchers from Syria, Türkiye, and Lebanon.

Cash Collaborative Delivery network (CCD) is a network of NGOs that are hosted by Save the Children UK that work on evidence-based collaborations for impactful, responsive, locally-led, and people-centric design & delivery of Cash and Voucher Assistance (CVA). They are working on streamlining and harmonizing due diligence and passporting in the earthquake response in Türkiye and Syria.

CCD and DEC agencies are adopting a harmonised due diligence process to reduce the administrative burden on downstream partners and promote a streamlined process. Save the Children, World Vision, Action Against Hunger and Concern have now confirmed participation in the CCD's due diligence and cash capacity assessment harmonisation project.

The next phase of the project focuses on providing enterprise support to civic entrepreneurs through the What’s Next fellowship programme. This phase hypothesises that a combination of financial support, business development services (BDS), and reflective spaces will enhance the confidence and capability of entrepreneurs in delivering their business models. By leveraging financial and tangible capital, we aim to increase revenue and economic activity, facilitating job creation and sustaining businesses despite the crisis. This place-based, hyper-local approach seeks to attract additional external funding and enhance social capital by fostering connections and partnerships within the community. Furthermore, this phase will explore the impact of our support on the well-being of children and families, emphasising the role of local entrepreneurs in driving sustainable, community-led development. Through these efforts, we aim to catalyse a shift from traditional charitable models to more sustainable social and civic modalities, unlocking latent assets and fostering a resilient entrepreneurial ecosystem.