Highlights
The preliminary ndings of Vasyr 2015, as well as the data from the household proling exercise continue to highlight the increasing diculties of Syrian refugees in meeting their basic needs. To complement the risk of increased vulnerability due to an approaching winter, the sector has completed and started to implement the winter support plan, along with endorsing packages and a methodology as per the 2014’s lessons learnt and recommendations.
Cash has been chosen as a main modality for assistance in the upcoming winter plan. Households will be targeted based on food eligibility, economic vulnerability, and exposure to cold. The cash for winter programme represent an extra boost to families as it is considered a ‘top-up’ to the regular ongoing multi-purpose cash programme. Approximately 165,000 Syrian refugee households will be receiving winter cash - $100 or $147 depending on altitude - from November to February.
Overall, more than 250,000 poor families from dierent cohorts will benet from cash, core relief items distribution, and shelter weatherproong.
Between September and October, the basic assistance sector undertook a revision of the cash eligibility formula as it was unable to fully capture the fast increase in economic vulnerability reected by VASyR 2015; severely vulnerable households went up from 26% to 52% compared to last year. As such, the cash eligibility formula was revised and operationalized in October 2015 to ensure higher eciency and increased accuracy in identication methods. In addition, parameters such as shelter conditions and expenditures on food were added as signicant predictors of poverty.
As a result of the application of the new formula, the number of eligible households increased from 38% to 54% - which is a more comparable rate as per the level of vulnerability identied in the 2015 VASyR. An additional 10,000 households will be enrolled in the regular multi-purpose cash programme as of November as well. Until the end of October, more than 100,000 families had their vulnerability proled and 57,335 (26,472 severely and 30,863 highly) were identied to require nancial support. 23,268 families received multi-purpose cash assistance in October and additional 10,000 will receive assistance as of November.
