The policy paper examines the rapid and complex transformation of local administration in Syria following the institutional shifts that accompanied the fall of the Assad regime in late 2024. It argues that while local governance has become central to managing recovery, territorial integrity, and state–society relations, the system is increasingly difficult to interpret, monitor, and regulate. The proliferation of overlapping decrees, improvised administrative arrangements, and divergent territorial practices has created a governance environment in which mandates, boundaries, and accountability channels remain unclear, undermining both service delivery and long-term recovery efforts. 

The paper highlights that decisions related to appointments, public order, service provision, and fundraising now extend beyond administrative functions to actively shape Syria’s emerging territorial order. In the absence of a coherent national framework, these practices are developing unevenly across governorates and municipalities, often consolidating fragmented governance arrangements. The resulting opacity weakens institutional accountability and limits the ability of citizens, local authorities, and international partners to understand who governs specific territories, under what legal and fiscal arrangements, and through which institutional mechanisms. 

Using this diagnosis, the paper frames legibility as a public good and a foundational requirement for rebuilding governance. It proposes an evidence-based national framework that reconciles parallel administrative logics, clarifies territorial unity (waḥda makāniyya), and organizes local governance across four interrelated pillars: political authority, administrative capacity, fiscal management, and legal grounding. This multidimensional approach recognizes that local governance in Syria is shaped not only by formal legislation but also by informal power structures, identity dynamics, external interventions, and socio-economic disparities. 

The paper concludes with a set of policy-oriented recommendations. These include rebuilding institutional memory, establishing knowledge and monitoring platforms to track legal and spatial transformations, supporting analytical and participatory engagement, piloting functional models of accountable local governance, and promoting structured national dialogue among central and local stakeholders. Together, these measures aim to enhance transparency, strengthen local institutions, and support more inclusive and coherent governance, positioning legible local administration as a prerequisite for credible recovery, institutional legitimacy, and sustainable peacebuilding in Syria.