Attachments
SUMMARY
With the support of UNHCR, the Community Support Projects Working Group and other sector working groups in Akkar, REACH undertook an assessment of host community needs in Akkar Governorate, one of Lebanon’s most underdeveloped regions and where 63% of the population currently lives below the poverty line. During the course of the assessment, the population of refugees in Lebanon passed the one million mark, with the number of refugees in Akkar surpassing 100,000 around the same time. With approximately one-third of the population of Akkar consisting of refugees, there has been a need to understand the pressures caused by large concentrations of displaced persons in one of Lebanon’s poorest regions. Accordingly, integrating findings from secondary research, key informant interviews, and focus group discussions, its goal was to provide a baseline of information about host communities, the challenges they face, and potential interventions that might support them.
As the crisis has continued, host community resilience has deteriorated in many locations, but tensions have varied widely by location. Lebanese key informants and focus groups may under report instances of outright tension with refugee populations, but declining attitudes towards hosting refugees, reports of spillover effects from the conflict, and sentiments that humanitarian actors may unfairly prioritize the needs of Syrian populations may indicate an erosion of social cohesion in many areas of Akkar. Rising feelings of insecurity, coupled with a rise in crime and social problems in many communities, provide additional insights into the deterioration in relations between refugee populations and host communities. Moves by individual communities to enact measures restricting refugees’ movement as well as community-based policing efforts speak to a need to build local institutional capacity and enhance dispute resolution mechanisms.
This assessment found that 195 villages in Akkar hosted Syrian refugees. The size of refugee populations, their reasons for settling in specific areas, and accommodation contexts play an important role in the effects of the crisis, and strains felt by host communities. In this assessment, very few key informants reported the existence of outright tensions, when in fact tensions may be pervasive in communities that host refugees. More specific questions regarding the existence of restrictions placed on refugees, identity paper requirements, and other discriminatory policies may also be sensitive and go unreported.
On the other hand, there may be more of a willingness to report other trends such as changes in attitudes towards hosting refugees, feelings of security, which may serve as proxies for tensions. Strategies for evaluating the existence of tensions will need to utilize a participatory approach that accounts for multiple perspectives within Lebanese and Syrian populations.
The resources that communities have to address tensions and reinforce social cohesion are varied and often limited. This assessment looked specifically at roles played by local governments, dispute resolution mechanisms, and humanitarian organizations. Local governments provide services as well as settle disputes, but their capacity in Akkar differs widely -- approximately one-fifth of the villages included in this assessment did not have municipal governments. Instead, these villages may rely on traditional forms of leadership, such as mukhtars, religious leaders, and elders. Both traditional leaders and municipal officials play important roles in dispute resolution, but a lack of formal mechanisms is common throughout Akkar. While many communities in Akkar report receiving assistance from humanitarian organizations, the effect of external support on social cohesion is not always clear. The majority of key informants who reported that humanitarian organizations had worked in their village indicated that assistance benefitted only Syrian populations, suggesting in most cases, a greater need to at least integrate support for host communities into interventions.
Livelihoods have been affected as well, with tensions created by growing populations competing for scarce income-generating opportunities, more expensive goods and services, and less affordable accommodations. While Akkar already faced an economy characterized by insufficient number of jobs and low-wage employment before the crisis, an influx of workers who are potentially willing to work for less money has exacerbated competition. The effects of growing populations and demand for goods and services, combined with the closure of commercial relationships dependent on the Syrian border – many illicit – has contributed to increases in the cost of living and reduced the scope of economic opportunities available to vulnerable Lebanese. Finally, dramatic increases in the population size have led to higher rent costs in most host communities, further compromising vulnerable Lebanese populations’ abilities to make ends meet.