December 2013
Context:
The lack of access to income has been steadily eroding the already poor living standards of many thousands of refugee families. With the onset of winter, food is becoming scarcer and more expensive while casual labour opportunities are diminishing and, in some areas, disappearing. As a result, parents are less able to provide for their children and the humanitarian situation is likely to deteriorate further. The number of refugees arriving daily into Lebanon is expected to remain constant in the coming months, creating further labour competition, decreasing daily wages and reducing the number of days’ work each household is able to access.
This crisis is also putting increasing pressure on vulnerable Lebanese families who have seen job opportunities and the daily wage dwindle and the cost of living spiral throughout this crisis. This has intensified over the past 12 months as the majority of Syrian refugees now living in Lebanon have arrived in 2013. This is adding to reports of increasing tensions and resentment amongst many in the Lebanese community[1].A recent joint report by the World Bank and UNDP estimates that the Syria crisis will cost Lebanon $7.5 billion in economic losses by the end of 2014. It estimates that unemployment rates will exceed 20% and increase the deficit by $2.6 billion by the end of 2014. UNDP has suggested that an additional 170,000 Lebanese people will be living in povertyand up to 324,000 Lebanese – mainly unskilled youth - will be unemployed by the end of 2014[2].In Addition, a survey done by OXFAM in November,showed that Syrian refugees in Lebanon are spiralling deeper and deeper into debt, living in cramped and overcrowded accommodation, with few job prospects.
Similarly, the Emergency Market Mapping Analysis (EMMA) conducted in partnership with Oxfam, DRC and IRC in March 2013 revealed that even poorly paid casual labor opportunities (for Syrians and host communities) are becoming increasingly limited due to higher competition. In addition wages have dropped by as much as 60% since before the crisis. The combination of decreased income and increased cost of living is forcing many families to embark on negative coping strategies; eating less and poorer quality food, sending their children to work, selling off any remaining assets, depleting whatever savings they had, and going into increasing amounts of debt in their struggle to make ends meet.
Our programme aims to support families with unconditional cash assistance as well as offering cash for work interventions to refugee and host community households, and skills training and traineeships to youth and other vulnerable households.
Our response:
We’ve been piloting innovative approaches to develop a variety of interventions best suited to the local contexts in which we operate, and ensure positive community based projects which boost social cohesion.
Supporting newly arrived families
We’re working with our shelter teams to provide assistance to newly arrived Syrian refugee families in Lebanon by:
-Providing food parcels from WFP to newly arrived refugee households in Akkar and Bekaa. This is to help a family of 5 meet their essential food needs each month[3]. We are aiming to support 490 households per month in Akkar and 680 per month in Bekaa throughout 2014,(adapting these targets for real new arrival trends)
-In parallel, this winter[4], we are providing 5,850 newly arrived refugee households across Akkar and Bekaa with an additional $150 cash payment[5] to help these families buy a stove and fuel for a month[6]. This is in addition to the distribution of winter NFI kits which consist of a kitchen set, hygiene kit, blankets and mattresses. This assistance will be distributed alongside the WFP food parcels
Supporting vulnerable families this winter with cash assistance:
In addition to providing shelter and NFI support this winter, we are providing unconditional cash assistance to registered and unregistered/excluded[7] Syrian refugee families.The targeting criteria for the most vulnerable households to receive winterisation support have been identified by cross organisational working groups[8] as:
- High altitude vulnerable -Households living above 500m in altitude, who are registered and who are considered vulnerable, according to UNHCR’s targeting criteria.
- Sub-standard shelter - All households living in sub-standard shelter (such as in informal settlements, unfinished buildings or converted garages. SCI is mainly targeting unregistered and excluded households.
- Safety margin- Intended to account for highly vulnerable households who didn’t fit into either of the above categories. This covers an estimated 10% of the current registered refugee population.
Of these groups, we will focus primarily on those living in sub-standard shelter, for whom we are already providing shelter support, and who are particularly vulnerable to winter conditions. Households registered with UNHCR will receive a total of 550 USD throughout the winter months, intended to enable households to buy a stove and sufficient fuel. We will reach a total of 1,680 registered households with cash assistance this winter.
In parallel, we will be providing much needed support to unregistered refugee households, also with a focus on those living in sub-standard shelter. The Government of Lebanon has estimated there are close to 1.3million Syrian refugees in Lebanon; whereas UNHCR estimates the number of registered refugees and those awaiting registration is more than 838,189[9]. This suggests that there are many Syrian refugee families living in Lebanon who have not registered with UNHCR. Syrian refugee families have reported a number of reasons for not registering, which include concerns about being identified and information as to their whereabouts being passed to parties inside Syria, fear for their own safety, lack of funds or difficulty in travelling to a UNHCR registration centre to register, or because they fear they will not receive any support even if they do register.
The unconditional cash assistance Save the Children is offering excluded or unregistered families throughout the winter equates to roughly the same value of support a registered family would receive if they were registered with UNHCR[10]. We are working to support 6,137 unregistered/excluded HHsacross Akkar and Bekaa with monthly cash assistance payments November to March 2014[11]. This combined support to registered and unregistered households will enable us to reach a total of 43,000 peoplethrough unconditional cash assistance this winter.
By the end of December, we had reached a total of 4000 households (20,000 individuals approximately).
Seasonal labour projects, and cash for work programmes, including skills training
Save the Children is implementing cash based public work schemes, including site improvements for informal settlements in Akkar and Bekaa. These projects encourage host community and Syrian refugees to work together for the benefit of the community and in support of social cohesion. Projects are identified via Community Development Committees and are selected based on their potential to absorb large amounts of unskilled labour, and their potential to improve community infrastructure.In particularwehave been focusing onimprovingtheconditionofInformalTentedSettlementswhere wealreadyprovideshelterinterventions, and on interventions that will benefit children, such as providing safe spaces for children to play[12].. Projects have already been implemented in Akkar and Bekaa and we are currently working in 10 locations in Akkar and in 30 locations in Bekaa, with more than 5500participantsbetween December 2013 and January 2014.
Figure 1 Cash for Work participants, Bekaa Valley May 2013
Save the Children is also looking at a sub set of particularly vulnerable households to get the opportunity to participate in more home based work or in home based livelihood skills training to help them support their families. The main focus will be on developing skills and services that meet the needs of the refugee population (such as food processing, soap making, and dairy production). These projects will be designed through aCash for Work modality, targeting highly vulnerable households and enabling them to provide additional income generation for their families. Through this programme 800 women will benefit from skills training on home-based activities, combined with business management and entrepreneurship training. We will learn from our existing experiences of Cash for Work programmes successfully engaging Syrians and Lebanese to work together.
Youth skills training & youth led community projects
Research carried out by Save the Children in July 2013[13], in Bekaa and Tripoli Governorate identified distinct opportunities for youth skills training and job matching in specific sectors. In particular, there are pockets of demand for specialised agricultural and vocational skills, and high demand for humanitarian skill sets. We used this research to design skills training options for youth dependant on which sets of skills they felt were most useful to them. The training package is complemented by 3 streams of livelihoods options:
i. Traineeships in the Humanitarian sector to engage youth in developing the skills required for humanitarian work in their own communities,
ii. Community engagement and project development training; followed by micro grants and further guidance for youth to actually implement their projects in the community.
iii. Employability, financial, and business training for youth; complimented by linkages to apprenticeships and vocational/technical training.
Participants receive cash assistance for attendance and the trainings run over a 3 month period. We are currently mentoring 110 youth in Bekaa and 170 youth in Tripoli in the first phase of these specialised training and support packages[14]. In 2014, we will be scaling up these programmes, with the main objective being viable work outcomes for youth through humanitarian traineeships and apprenticeships in local businesses.
Save the Children has benefited more than24,391 people through FSL activities & aims to reach more individuals by the end of the year.
Our Future Plans
-Provide e-vouchers to up to 20,000 households in Akkar from December onwards, to support them to meet their essential food needs. WFP e-voucher programme distributions started on 06/12/2013 in Qobayat
-Scale up our community support projects to provide casual labour opportunities aimed at improving community level infrastructure (including site improvements in informal settlements). These projects are also intended to foster social cohesion by encouraging Syrians and Lebanese to work together
-Work alongside other livelihoods agencies to identify and develop viable markets for the products of home-based Cash for Work activities which will start in the Bekaa and Akkar in January
-Learn from our existing youth livelihoods programming to inform the design of future youth work, as part of a fully integrated multi-sectoral response. We will focus on viable employment markets by expanding and strengthening our humanitarian traineeship programme, and working with Small and Medium-size Enterprises to identify apprenticeship opportunities for youth
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[1]As highlighted in several reports, including World Vision ‘Under Pressure; the impact of the Syrian refugee crisis on host communities in Lebanon’ July 2013; and MercyCorps ‘Things fall apart; political, economic and social instability in Lebanon’ June 2013
[2]
[3] Although does not meet full nutritional requirements. Funded by WFP
[4] November 2013 to March 2014
[5]Our cash transfer mechanism is a pre-loaded CSC card which can be used in any ATM in the country.
[6] ECHO funded
[7] UNHCR/WFP are now targeting assistance due to budget restrictions from November 2013. This means 65% of registered refugees will continue to receive support but the remainder will no longer be eligible.
[8] Including UNHCR, WFP, Oxfam, DRC etc
[9] As of10December 2013.
[10] A registered family receives cash assistance, plus monthly food vouchers and NFIs.
[11] Funded by ECHO, CIDA and DFID. Newly Arrived families are identified by a combination of information from Municipalities and new arrival focal points identified among the refugee community and host community where we are working.
[12] As is currently underway in Balanet el Hisa, Akkar, October 2013
[13] Rapid Localised Skills Gap Assessment, Save the Children, July 2013
[14]Funded by SIDA-Hum from October 2013 to February 2014.