Reconfiguring Relief Mechanisms: The Syrian Refugee Crisis in Lebanon | Ifi Research Report

Research Report | February 2014
Reconfiguring Relief Mechanisms: The Syrian Refugee Crisis in Lebanon by Rabih Shibli
The past three years of turmoil and bloodshed in Syria have forced more than 6 million Syrians to flee their homes and seek refuge in perceived safer areas inside and outside Syria. According to the latest reports1 issued by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), more than 868,224 Syrian refugees have settled in Lebanon, with the majority facing severe living conditions. Due to financial and political constraints, the Lebanese government has not yet created a crisis-plan for dealing, with what has been noted by Antonio Guterres, the UN’s High Commissioner for Refugees, as “the great tragedy of this century – a disgraceful humanitarian calamity with suffering and displacement unparalleled in recent history”2 . To date, international organizations and local nongovernmental organizations (NGOs) represent the backbone of relief efforts. However, the rapid increase in refugee numbers (an eight-fold increase in one year, growing from 100,000 in October 2012 to 850,000 in October 20133 ) has put serious strains on Lebanon’s precarious economy and is causing tensions to rise between the refugees and the host community due to the lack of a strategic relief vision.
This paper highlights the specificity of the refugee crisis in the unstable Lebanese landscape and calls for the reconfiguring of current relief mechanisms by enabling decentralized local authorities to lead the process. Crisis Management Teams (CMTs), part of Mohafazat councils, will be responsible of collaborating with national and international agencies, planning and monitoring relief projects. The paper also draws on the experience gained by the Community Projects and Development unit (CDPu) – American University of Beirut (AUB), and recommends engaging refugees in municipal public works along ecological lines, as a means to highlight self-reliance among the refugees’ communities and to alleviate rising tensions among refugees and the host communities.

Publisher: 
Issam Fares Institute For Public Policy And International Affairs
تاريخ النشر: 
السبت, 1 فبراير 2014
نوع المورد: 
Studies and Reports
ملف: 
Refugees
حلة: 
Refugees