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Lebanon + 2 more

Lebanon: Syria Crisis Response - WFP Lebanon Situation Report July 2015

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Context and WFP Response

  • UNHCR has registered over 1.1 million Syrians in Lebanon, representing the world’s highest per capita concentration of refugees compared to its population. It is an influx that is placing significant strain on existing resources and host communities.

  • As the Syria crisis continues, WFP - the world’s largest humanitarian agency fighting hunger - is increasingly relied upon to provide life-saving assistance to an extraordinary number of refugees. However, massive regional funding gaps meant tough decisions were made to prioritise less assistance to the neediest refugee households. With sustained constraints, WFP will be unable to meet the basic food needs of those refugees.

  • In Lebanon, WFP provides assistance to vulnerable Syrian refugees and Palestinian refugees from Syria with e-cards. E-cards are the principle assistance modality as local markets are capable of providing sufficient food. Beneficiaries use the e-cards like a debit card in over 400 WFP-contracted shops around Lebanon. Significantly, e-cards allow beneficiaries to choose preferred foods and to meet their individual consumption needs. Since 2013, WFP has injected over US$490 million directly into the Lebanese economy.

  • WFP provides technical assistance to the Ministry of Social Affairs through the National Poverty Targeting Programme (NPTP). Through it, vulnerable Lebanese receive US$30 per person per month.

  • The preliminary results of the 2015 multi-sectoral Vulnerability Assessment of Refugees (VASyR) in Lebanon show a continued deterioration of the food security situation across Lebanon compared to 2014.

Specifically:

  • 70 percent of households are below the poverty line (US$3.84/person/day), an increase from 50 percent;
  • 50 percent of households are below the survival expenditure basket*, an increase from 29 percent;
  • 67 percent of households are applying severe and crisis coping strategies, an increase from 28 percent;
  • 7 percent of households are food secure, a decrease from 25 percent; and
  • 24 percent of households are moderately food insecure, an increase from 12 percent.