The monthly dashboard summarizes the progress made by partners involved in the Lebanon Crisis Response and highlights trends affecting people in need. Social Stability partners are working to strengthen local communities and institutions ability to mitigate tensions and prevent conflict, and to inform the overall response on the evolution of tensions.
Sector Progress
Social stability partners have increased and diversified their support in the past few months, despite a severe funding gap. The sector remains the most underfunded within the response with only 17m USD (14% of the appeal) received so far. In order to fill this critical gap, four social stability projects will be funded under the OCHA Humanitarian fund, representing an additional support of 1.8m USD to the sector to address priority gaps, notably community dialogue and youth empowerment initiatives in Tripoli.
Overall, 25 partners are currently active in 217 of the 251 most vulnerable cadasters across the country. Results to date indicate that the sector’s support to municipalities remains strong, with 159 municipalities and Unions receiving capacity building support. 128 projects worth 11.1mUSD have been implemented since the beginning of the year, representing respectively a 10% and 34% increase compared to same time last year. However, in 85 out of the 217 localities currently targeted, partners have only facilitated participatory identification of priority needs and sources of tensions, but have not yet implemented any interventions to address these. This means 119 out of the 251 localities identified as most vulnerable are not receiving tangible support to alleviate resource pressure or mitigate tensions.
On a positive note, soft activities such as dialogue mechanisms or youth empowerment have increased by more than 30% compared Quarter 2, with over 1,000 youth and children participating in 41 new initiatives. In addition, 10 new conflict mitigation mechanisms have been established in Q3, bringing the total number of active dialogue committees/-mechanisms to 49, covering over 100 localities in Lebanon. Partners report that thanks to their inclusive membership and their link to local institutions, these committees such as the one established in Akroum, Akkar, are not only helping detect tension and clashes in the community but also devise measures to counter them.
The support provided to the Ministries of Interior has been scaled up in the past few months, enabling 27 security cells (one at the central level and one in each of the 26 Qaza) to be equipped, set up and trained on data collection and analysis on social tensions and monitoring of the security situation. In parallel, the committee in charge of the drafting of the Standard Operating Procedure and Code of Conduct of the municipal police has organized 12 local consultations to collect inputs from representatives of the security forces, governors, municipalities and civil society organizations. Both initiatives are already supporting dialogue between central and local institutions, ensuring that the analysis and guidance of the Ministry of Interior is rooted in the needs and realities from the field. In the next quarter, a priority interventions for partners will be to deliver trainings for newly elected municipal officials so as to familiarize them with their roles and responsibilities