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Market Assessment in the Gaza Strip: Is the market of the besieged enclave conducive to a large CBT intervention?

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In the besieged Gaza Strip, almost 40 percent of the population lives below the poverty line and almost half of households are food insecure. UNRWA and WFP assist more than 1.2 million people with some type of food aid: 93 percent receive in-kind food, 6 percent benefit from value-based electronic food vouchers and 1 percent receive both wheat flour and vouchers. Against this backdrop, this report investigates the functionality of the food commodity market in the Gaza Strip to understand whether it is generally conducive to a significant scale-up of cash-based transfer (CBT) interventions. The analysis is based on secondary data as well as primary data collected in November/December 2016 by the Palestinian Central Bureau of Statistics (PCBS) through a trader survey of 859 food shops. The analysis is complemented with qualitative data and information obtained during semi-structured interviews with main stakeholders and partners conducted in January 2017 in the Gaza Strip by the authors of the report.