The project goals were to produce articles and content material on the Syrian war and life in Syria and to translate and post articles about Syria from various sources including the National News Agency. In addition, the “Who’s Who” section on the website was enhanced in terms of development and user friendliness and a weekly newsletter with highlights was being sent to the subscribers.

In terms of audience, the readership of the Syrian Observer website slightly declined compared to the same period in 2020, an expected consequence of the general Syria fatigue. However, its audience on social media increased as it crossed the 10,000 followers on Twitter.  The website should serve stakeholders, including academics, journalists, diplomats, humanitarian aid analysts and other political and international relations practitioners working on Syria to understand much better the various perspectives of the actors involved, the developments in Syria, as well as the contexts in which these happen. In turn, this should help them to make better-informed decisions.

While the Syrian Observer strives to promote liberal political values such as democracy, accountability, independency of the judiciary and free media, there was a need to translate regime press and media for non-Arabic-speaking stakeholders to understand it better and learn about the life conditions under regime control. Kurdish publications were also being translated to provide a broad and comprehensive coverage of the situation in Syria.