BEIRUT: Lebanon, in cooperation with the United Nations Development Program, will expand its support program for host communities in 2015, in line with the government’s policy on refugees to safeguard the country’s stability.
This year, the Social Affairs Ministry will continue to work with the U.N. body to build the capacities of communities affected by the Syrian crisis, with programs to alleviate tensions and prevent conflict, government and U.N. representatives said Monday during a news conference held at the Smallville Hotel in Badaro.
Projects will expand to include the municipality of Tripoli, in addition to refugee-populated areas further north in Akkar, the Bekaa Valley and Mount Lebanon.
“The truth is all of Lebanon is a host community and we need to try to work locally and then grow from there,” said Adib Nehme, an adviser to Social Affairs Minister Rashid Derbas. “That’s why we need to develop our work methods. The most important thing we need to do is develop a dynamic balance between relief work and stability and development work.”
Speaking during the event, Derbas revealed that the ministry would launch a project to establish kindergartens in Lebanese areas ready to receive poor Syrian and Lebanese children. “There is a segment [of Syrian refugees] which no one pays attention to. These are refugees between [the ages of] 3 and 5 who do not enroll at school,” Derbas said. “What is their psychological state and health situation?”
“We will be setting a humanitarian model of cooperation between Lebanese and Syrian societies if donor groups and the ministry are able to make this project materialize,” the minister added.
The news conference preceded a steering committee meeting made up of government representatives and donor countries. The committee meets once a year to provide the support project with strategic direction.
Technical groups comprised of relevant ministry representatives, the office of the prime minister, the Council for Development and Reconstruction and certain donor countries will meet to form a strategy to implement the decisions of the steering committee.
The Lebanon Host Communities Support Project was launched in February 2013 jointly between the Social Affairs Ministry and the UNDP with the aim of stabilizing careworn Lebanese communities hosting Syrian refugees. The project is also part of the Lebanon Crisis Response plan launched in December.
“I think we are all aware that the fifth year of the Syrian crisis is just starting, alas it does not appear very likely at all that it will be the last year of the crisis and Lebanon continues to host an unprecedented number of Syrians,” U.N. Resident Coordinator in Lebanon Ross Mountain said, addressing the conference.
“We all are aware of the impact this has on this fragile country, this fragile governance and the socio-economic impact.”
Lebanon hosts 1.1 million Syrian refugees registered with the UNHCR, though government estimates put the total number of refugees higher. The influx has overwhelmed Lebanon’s feeble infrastructure and put exceptional pressures on social services.
The program adopts a multilevel approach by reinforcing municipal services in especially impoverished communities, boosting basic health care and education, stimulating economic development by creating jobs and defusing tensions through dispute resolution.
“The expected outcome of this project is to increase stability, particularly in areas most affected by the crisis through improving livelihood and basic services in a participatory way, and this is done by strengthening the capacity of local actors,” said Raghed Assi, program manager at UNDP.
This year the project will attend to 173 communities, an increase from last year’s 146. Areas of local operation are selected based on a standardized national criteria which include considering the ratio of Syrian refugees to Lebanese and the poverty rate in a given area.
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