Highlights
Lebanon has submitted its Country Strategic Plan (2018-2020) for approval at the upcoming session of the WFP Executive Board in June.
Assistance to vulnerable Lebanese under the National Poverty Targeting Programme commenced in May.
In May, WFP reached 824,571 people: 692,451 Syrian refugees; 52,724 vulnerable Lebanese under the National Poverty Targeting Programme, 16,241 Palestinian refugees from Syria; 16,400 were reached through school snacks and 46,572 recipients were reached through cash for education; 183 were reached through digital skills training.
Operational Updates
The WFP Lebanon Food Security Outcome Monitoring (FSOM) Report for April confirmed that food consumption levels for assisted households improved significantly in 2016 and remained stable until April 2017, with 64 percent of households having acceptable food consumption. The percentage of households with poor food consumption reached the lowest level (4 percent) and overall satisfaction with WFP assistance has been the highest since the start of the FSOM in January 2016.
An additional 17 schools were selected for inclusion in the school snack programme by the Ministry of Education and Higher Education. The programme now focuses on 38 schools, and 16,400 children (10,935 in the morning shift-predominately Lebanese children including a small percentage of displaced Syrian children), and 5,465 in the afternoon (only displaced Syrian children).
In 2017, WFP is scaling up livelihoods activities, supporting around 51,000 people in priority areas throughout Lebanon. Thus far, WFP has signed agreements with seven cooperating partners (ACF, DRC, IOCC, LOST, PU AMI, Save the Children, and SHEILD) to implement 44 activities across the country. These activities include the construction of agricultural roads, irrigation systems and drainage canals as well as reforestation, the training of women in food processing techniques and nutrition awareness sessions.
Building up on the success of the pilot project in 2016, WFP’s digital livelihoods project for training displaced Syrians as well as Lebanese in basic computer skills, has been scaled up to reach 5,000 beneficiaries until the end of 2017. Two cycles of trainings have already been conducted and the third cycle is currently underway. A total of 1,300 beneficiaries have been reached in these three cycles.