Appeal Target: US$ 10,198,915 Balance requested: US$ 10,198,915
BACKGROUND
It has been seven years and the conflict in Syria continues. More than half of the population has been forcibly displaced from their homes, and many people have been displaced multiple times. The number of daily displacement remains high, with approximately 6200 newly displaced persons each day (HNO 2018). According to report by the UNHCR, it is estimated that 13.5 million people are in need of humanitarian assistance. Of these, 6.3 million are internally displaced, 12.8 million require health assistance, 5.8 million people are in acute need due to multiple displacements, exposure to hostilities, and limited access to basic goods and services, and 4.3 million in need of shelter intervention (UNHCR, 2017 report). In addition, there are approximately 3 million people in need trapped in besieged and hard-to-reach areas, where they are exposed to serious protection threats (OCHA 2017). Children and youth comprise more than half of the displaced, as well as half of those in need of critical humanitarian assistance.
While no large influxes of Syrian refugees across borders have currently been witnessed, an additional 570,000 Syrian refugees across the region have been registered in 2017 increasing the number of registered refugees from 4.8 million to 5.3 million (3RP- Regional Overview 2018-2019). The critical response for the refugee situation continues to fall primarily on the neighbouring countries in the region (mainly Lebanon, Jordan and Turkey) who continue to host a large number of registered refugees per capita. The already vulnerable and fragile context of the host community population is further exacerbated as one in three people in Lebanon is a refugee. In Jordan, the ration is slightly higher (one in 12 people is a refugee) but the socio-economic pressure on the country is similar. While some international efforts for a political settlement resulted in talks between various conflicted parties and the establishment of de-escalation zones, the direct impact on Syrians’ safety, protection and lives is still not clear.
Though the overall level of violence decreased in some areas of Syria (primarily those linked to de-escalation zones in southern Syria, northern Homs), violence escalated and or remained high elsewhere such as in Eastern Ghouta, Damascus, Raqqa and Deir-Ez-Zour where fighting continues to inflict high civilian casualties. Cross- border operations in Syria have been ongoing since 2014, following the adoption of UN Security Resolution 2165. The UN conducts on average 4 cross border convoys a week. This has allowed access to UN agencies and implementing partners to provide necessary humanitarian assistance to affected persons.
The protracted crisis in Syria has resulted in a quasi-permanent presence of a Syrian refugee community in both Jordan and Lebanon. In Jordan there are about 1.4 million Syrians, including over 650,000 registered refugees in Jordan. More than 80% of Syrian refugees living in the host community live below the poverty line, in the country’s most disadvantaged communities. Despite efforts by the Government of Jordan to open up the formal labour market to Syrian refugees [Ministry of Labour had issued and/or renewed 71,426 work permits for Syrians, as of October 2017], Syrian refugees still require humanitarian assistance to meet basic needs. Lebanon hosts more than 1 million Syrians, spread throughout 251 most vulnerable cadastres in the country where people live in dire need of humanitarian assistance - mostly in the Bekaa and North however not withholding any other area (Lebanon Crisis Response Plan (LCRP) 2017-2020). In both countries, humanitarian assistance for Syrian refugees and vulnerable host communities remains critical. In Lebanon, the sudden resignation of the Prime Minister Saad Hariri on November 4 th heightened the sense of an impending crisis. While the situation normalized with his return, the incident exposed a precarious political context and its potential impact on the region. As witnessed in 2017, an increase in restrictions on refugees applied at the local level in Lebanon will likely continue. These restrictions generate protection issues and further curtail living conditions as refugees face expulsions from certain geographical areas, evictions from property, curfews and raids by municipal police and security forces. The Government of Lebanon’s restrictive residency requirements for Syrian refugees compounds many of the challenges already faced by refugees and heightens the risks and vulnerabilities to exploitation and abuse, particularly related to livelihoods. As the country is preparing for parliamentary elections in May 2018, there is a possibility that politicians will use topics related to the impact of the Syria crisis on Lebanon to get attention of the voters (4,164 informal settlements, population has increased by 25%, workforce increased by 50%, $7.5 billion in economic losses).
In both Lebanon and Jordan, security considerations increasingly dominate discussions relating to the Syrian refugee issue. Lebanon de facto closed its border in 2015; Jordan in 2016. The number of Syrians seeking to enter Jordan rose rapidly from the end of 2015, with over 80 000 people stranded at the north-eastern border (also known as the ‘Berm’). Whilst social tensions between refugees and host communities result from the competition for limited services and scarce resources, refugees continue to face obstacles to renew their legal stay limiting their capacity to access available services. In some of the neighbouring countries, Syrian refugees are subject to curfews, arbitrary arrests, forced encampment as well as restrictions on movement and access to services. This conundrum disproportionately affects their capacity to work in compliance with the employment legislation of host countries and consequently pushes the most vulnerable segments of the refugee population - after exhausting their coping resources due to protracted displacement - into a downward spiralling socio-economic vulnerability and negative coping mechanisms.
ACT Jordan-Syria-Lebanon (JSL) Forum members have been able to respond and successfully provide humanitarian assistance to affected-persons. Through strong coordination with INGO/LNGO forums and sector cluster workings groups in Jordan, Syria and Lebanon, ACT JSL members are well-informed and prepared to continue their humanitarian response in key priority areas (shelter/NFI, cash assistance, health and nutrition, food security, livelihoods, WASH, protection/psychosocial and education). ACT JSL members, together with other humanitarian actors, participate regularly in vulnerability assessments, data gathering, and focus group discussions for various sector related programming to adapt to best practices, changing regulations and security situations to ensure a timely and coordinated response. With only 43.2% of 2017 Regional Refugee & Resilience Plan (3RP) funded, humanitarian needs will persist among the refugee and vulnerable host community population in 2018.