Attachments
Situation in Numbers
7,350,000 children in need
18,800,000 people in need
5,600,000 registered Syrian refugees (HNO/UNHCR)
Highlights
• Overall and across countries, the COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on access by Syrian refugees and host communities to a range of services, particularly in education, protection, health and nutrition. UNICEF and partners have designed alternative response interventions to mitigate the consequences where possible.
• Much of the UNICEF response remains severely underfunded, and available funding often lacks the flexibility needed to support adjustments in programming, including for COVID-19.
• In Turkey, in addition to strengthening social protection response and designing alternative forms of education and the promotions of life skills and adolescent empowerment opportunities, UNICEF and partners provided vital relief supplies and child protection services for the estimated 8,000 women and children stranded in Edirne at the Greek border.
• In Iraq, UNICEF provided key supplies, including Personal Protection Equipment (PPE) for COVID-19, as a strategy to ensure the continuity of essential health and nutrition services. UNICEF also strengthened its WASH programming in camps, and supported TV and radio education channel in both Kurdish and Arabic languages during school closures, reaching 41,411 refugees and 45,000 individuals in host communities.
• In Jordan and Lebanon, UNICEF stepped up its social protection response through the expansion of emergency cash transfers programmes to families affected by economic deterioration and the COVID-19 pandemic. In Jordan, UNICEF provided monthly cash transfers to 29,959 children from 9,138 households, including families in Informal Tented Settlements (ITSs) and those belonging to marginalized communities. In Lebanon, UNICEF is directly providing technical and financial support to the government’s emergency cash assistance programme to over 750,000 Lebanese people (known as the National Social Solidarity Project).
• In Egypt, UNICEF and the Ministry of Health and Population supported the continuity of services. UNICEF supported 60,343 primary health consultations for refugee children under five years old, and 6,894 primary health care consultations for refugee women.