WFP/Hussam Al-Saleh Fact Sheet FEBRUARY 2015 Syria Crisis Response
The Syrian Crisis Syria is embroiled in a violent civil war that has resulted in widespread destruction and devastation. The conflict have caused the Syrian economy to contract by an estimated 40 percent since 2011, leading to the majority of the Syrian population losing their livelihoods. More than 75 percent of the population lives in poverty and more than half live in extreme poverty. Similarly, human development gains have seen a reversal by almost four decades as severe infrastructural damage and economic recession have left healthcare facilities, schools and other essential services unable to meet the population needs. Between 2011 and 2014, Syria has fallen from the medium human development cluster of nations into the low human development category. Since the beginning of the conflict, almost half of all Syrians were forced to leave their homes, often multiple times, making Syria the largest displacement crisis in the world. By now, 7.6 million people internally displaced within Syria, while more than three million sought refuge in neighbouring countries. Sustained displacement, large-scale infrastructural damage and inadequacy of basic services have progressively eroded available resources and shrunk households resilience capacity. Latest estimates indicate that at the end of 2014 humanitarian needs have doubled since the beginning of the crisis, with 12.2 million people now in need of various forms of humanitarian assistance inside Syria. The food security further deteriorated across Syria, as the agriculture sector suffered significant losses due to infrastructural damage, reduced access to land, high cost and low availability of agricultural inputs, as well as drought conditions in parts of the country s crop-producing regions. Food production sharply declined, with wheat harvest for the 2013/2014 agriculture cycle estimated to have decreased by 17 to 29 percent in comparison to the previous year, and to have halved compared to the pre-crisis levels. Reduced production, low availability and higher reliance on foreign import with consequent price inflation have further reduced access to food for vulnerable households. Although security and access constraints hindered the ability to conduct a country-wide assessment, analysis of available data highlighted a deterioration of the food security situation in the country. Some 9.8 million people, approximately half of the country s population, are currently in need of various levels of food, agriculture, and livelihood-related assistance. Of these, 6.8 million people are believed to be in urgent need of food assistance. A review of WFP monitoring data confirms a deterioration in household resilience and the use of negative coping strategies among both displaced families and host communities, including the selling of assets and property, withdrawing children from school to work, borrowing money, reducing the number of daily meals taken, and eating lower quality and less nutritious food. The humanitarian and displacement crisis is also considered to have exacerbated pre-existing vulnerabilities among certain population groups. The Rapid Nutrition Assessment of IDP children under five, conducted in mid-2014, confirmed the presence of a serious nutritional crisis, with alarming malnutrition levels across the country. WFP monitoring data in 2014 revealed that generally women headed households tend to have lower food consumption scores and to resort more heavily to negative coping strategies compared their male-headed counterparts. The conflict has had particularly negative effects on education system, owing to infrastructural damage and loss of human resources. The overall enrolment and attendance rates have significantly decreased as a result of widespread insecurity and displacement, reversing decades of education gains. Moreover, as the prolonged conflict destroys livelihoods and shrinks resilience, households increasingly enact negative coping mechanisms, which in some cases include withdrawing children from school for work and using them for income generating purposes. In 2013, 2.3 million children of primary school age were estimated to be either out of school or not attending classes regularly. While improvements in the enrolment rates were observed in 2014, following the launch of a UNICEF-led inter-agency campaign to promote a return to learning, only 67 percent of school age children are currently enrolled. 1
WFP in Syria WFP has had a continued presence in Syria for almost 50 years, providing more than US$500 million worth of food assistance into the country through development and emergency operations. Prior to the current conflict, WFP, together with its partner organization the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC), responded to emergency food needs following consecutive droughts, assisted in the implementation of school feeding programmes and provided assistance to Iraqi refugees seeking sanctuary in Syria. WFP Operations in the Current Crisis In October 2011, WFP launched an Emergency Operation to provide relief food assistance to affected families, in what was then a localised conflict. In response to a progressive escalation of the conflict and a deteriorating food security situation, WFP gradually scaled up its assistance from an initial 50,000 people, to 4 million in 2013 and a planned 4.5 million in 2015. Initially working in partnership only with one partner, the Syrian Arab Red Crescent (SARC), in 2013 WFP started to gradually increase its partnership base to include local and international NGOs in order to increase its coverage and delivery capacity throughout the country. Currently, a total of 28 partners facilitate WFP assistance distribution in all 14 governorates, including SARC, 26 local NGOs and one international NGO working in Hama governorate, the Aga Khan Foundation. Through their long established presences and extensive local networks, WFP s partner organisations, local authorities and community leaders can be mobilised to help ensure and organize the safe delivery of assistance. Each partner is selected through WFP s due diligence process in order to ensure their compatibility with WFP s mandate and with the principles of the UN Global Compact and the WFP Code of Conduct. In addition, at the end of 2014 WFP further expanded its INGO partnerships to sustain a scale-up of deliveries in high conflict areas through the recently opened corridors from Jordan and Turkey. Currently INGOs facilitate handling and distributions of food supplies delivered from Jordan and Turkey to hard-to-reach areas in Aleppo, Idleb, Dar a and Quneitra governorates. WFP co-leads with FAO the Food Security and Agriculture Sector to inform strategic decision-making, plan and develop strategies and facilitate coordination among sector members. The adoption of the UN Security Council Resolution 2165 in July and the consequent opening of new corridors from Turkey and Jordan, resulted in an increased need for coordination with Turkey and Jordan based actors operating inside Syria. In response, a Whole of Syria approach was adopted, with a dedicated Cluster structure activated in Amman to ensure effective coordination, information sharing and joint operational planning between food security actors based in Syria, Turkey and Jordan. Activities Currently, WFP targets up to 4.25 million people through a combination of general food distributions, specialized nutrition support to prevent malnutrition in young children, and early recovery activities such as school feeding and targeted nutrition support to pregnant and nursing mothers through food voucher transfers. Over the course of 2015, WFP plans to further scale-up its assistance to reach a total of 4.5 million people, by introducing livelihoods strengthening activities in areas of relative stability as well as a targeted supplementary feeding programme to treat infant malnutrition. 2
General Food Distributions WFP general food distributions currently target the most vulnerable households across all 14 Syrian governorates, prioritizing displaced households, families without a regular and stable source of income; vulnerable host communities, persons with disabilities and the most vulnerable resident families living in high conflict areas. Although WFP s emergency food assistance is not targeted on the basis of sex, vulnerable female-headed households are prioritized for registration as beneficiaries. General food assistance is provided in the form of monthly food rations sufficient to feed a family of five for one month, consisting of rice, bulgur wheat, pasta, dried and canned pulses, vegetable oil, tomato paste, salt and sugar, and providing up to 1,646 Kcal per person per day. In areas with limited availability or where destruction of milling and baking facilities led to severe bread shortages, the basket includes wheat flour, which is either distributed directly to beneficiaries or channeled through local partners to local bakeries to produce and distribute bread to vulnerable households. In some cases, ready-to-eat rations are also distributed to newly displaced families without access to other food sources or cooking facilities. Nutrition Support Programmes Amidst reports of alarming malnutrition levels in the county, WFP has progressively introduced activities to complement the general food assistance, targeting vulnerable beneficiary groups with specific nutrition requirements. These include a Blanket Supplementary Feeding Programme to prevent acute malnutrition and micronutrient deficiencies among children under the age of five living in both host communities and collective shelters introduced in March 2013. Initially implemented in partnership only with the Ministry of Health and UNICEF, the scheme was limited to children living in IDP collective shelters. Since September 2013 WFP, in partnership with local NGOs, extended the activity beyond official IDP collective shelters to reach vulnerable children residing in host communities. In 2014, WFP, in partnership with the MoH, SARC and four local NGOs, has provided specialised nutrition support to up to 220,000 children under five in both collective and host communities across the country. To complement this activity, in July 2014, WFP lunched voucher-based nutrition support to improve the dietary diversity of vulnerable pregnant and nursing women in Homs and Lattakia, through the provision of monthly vouchers of the value of 4,800 Syrian Pounds (approximately 22 US Dollars). Displaced by violence and with limited income, the targeted women, are often forced to cut consumption of high nutrient foods, sold at prohibitive prices on local markets. Most resort to cheaper and lower quality foods as a result, which deprive them of essential micronutrients and endanger their health and that of their unborn or infant child. Aiming to reach 15,000 women by the end of 2015, the voucher nutrition programme aim to improve access to better quality nutrition for pregnant and lactating women by the end of 2014.by enabling them to purchase fresh food items not included in the standard GFD basket such as fruits, vegetables, meat and dairy products. School Feeding Programme Concern over the conflict s impact on children culminated in a UNICEF-led inter-agency response strategy, No Lost Generation, to promote a return to learning and prevent the loss of an entire generation. In support of the initiative, in August 2014 WFP launched a school feeding programme in collaboration with the Ministry of Education and UNICEF. The programme aims to regularize attendance and increase enrolment levels whilst improving micronutrient intake amongst vulnerable primary school children whose lives have been severely disrupted by four years of conflict. Conditional upon attendance, each student in targeted schools will receive a packet of highly nutritious date-bars of 344 Kcal per day, able cover up to 75 percent of the child s recommended daily nutritional needs. At present, approximately 90,000 primary school children in Rural Damascus, Aleppo and Tartous governorates are benefiting from the programme, in selected areas with high IDP concentration and poor education indicators. Arrangements are underway to further expand the coverage of the programme to reach a total of 500,000 primary school children across Syria by the end of 2015. 3
Logistics Logistical needs inside Syria are continuously changing due to the fluidity of the security and access situation on the ground, and require a high degree of flexibility in planning. In this context, a complex chain of delivery underpins the implementation of these programmes. WFP imports food into Syria through the primary supply corridors of Beirut and Tartous, while the use of Lattakia port was also increased since 2013. In 2014, a fourth humanitarian corridor through Nusaybin crossing point on the border with Turkey was opened in order to provide assistance to Al-Hasakeh governorate, cut off from all in-country deliveries since the second half of 2013. In addition, with the passing of UN Security Council Resolution 2165 and the approval for the use of additional border crossings for humanitarian purposes, in July 2014 WFP started cross-border deliveries from new corridors from Jordan and Turkey to reach high conflict areas in Aleppo, Idleb, Dar a and Quneitra governorates. WFP retains the capability to rapidly adjust its use of available corridors in response to changes in the operating environment. Upon arrival in Syria, food commodities are assembled in storage and packaging facilities strategically located in Tartous, Lattakia, Homs and Rural Damascus. To avoid assembling the food basket on-site under challenging security conditions, food is packaged prior to dispatch, thus mitigating the risks of losses and ensuring that each family receives the adequate food items. Each packaging facility produces up to 10,000 food rations every day, which are then dispatched to governorates allocated to each centre according to respective strategic advantages. Facilities in Safita, Lattakia and Homs offering a good staging point to cover the requirements of central and northern governorates, while facilities in Damascus serve the southern governorates. This allocation maximises the efficiency of food dispatches while reducing travel times, thus mitigating exposure of cargo to security threats. Once packaged, the family food rations are delivered to WFP partners for distribution to beneficiaries on the basis of monthly allocation plans. Due to difficulties in establishing storage and packaging facilities in the areas reached through the Turkish and Jordanian corridors, mostly hard-to-reach areas, WFP uses rations pre-packed outside Syria and are either stored in WFP warehouses inside Syria prior to dispatch to partners or transported directly at handover points to partners in Syria, without being processed through WFP facilities. For transport inside Syria, WFP utilises existing commercial transport settings, encouraging local capacities where possible. Previously working with one single transport partner, WFP contracted three additional transport companies in September 2013 to increase its delivery capacity and respond to the growing need for humanitarian assistance within the country. Each transporter is allocated specific areas on the basis of a previously established presence in certain parts of the country. This maximizes WFP s ability to deliver to all locations. For specific areas where surface access can be sporadic and the humanitarian situation particularly dire, contingencies for airlift of life-saving supplies are arranged. Food distributions take place at final distribution points (FDPs) agreed upon with partners. Due to the instability of security conditions on the ground, the number of FDPs and their locations vary from month to month, as partners may no longer be able to perform distributions in previously accessible locations, or beneficiaries may be unable to reach planned distribution sites. Logistics and Emergency Telecommunication Clusters Through a separately funded Special Operation, WFP provides logistics and telecommunications support to the wider humanitarian community operating within Syria. Through its Logistics Cluster mandate, WFP fills logistics gaps faced by the humanitarian community by providing common free-to-user and cost-recovery services including transport services, dedicated storage, coordination and information management support. In line with the Whole of Syria approach, the Logistics Cluster established a solid coordination and information platform across the region, with regular meetings held in Syria, Turkey and Jordan to discuss logistics bottlenecks and develop common solutions for the humanitarian response. 4
Furthermore, as the Emergency Telecommunications Cluster (ETC) lead, WFP provides vital security communications services and voice and internet connectivity to support the humanitarian community. Coordination and distribution of information products to the humanitarian community, including service maps and regular situation reports, is also a key function of the ETC. Challenges Security Risks to staff safety continue to represent the greatest threat to sustaining WFP operations in the country. Should the security environment deteriorate further, WFP may be forced to reduce its footprint inside the country by deploying both national and international staff to work from alternative locations. While remote management plans have been developed, including the increasing use of WFP s Lebanon and Jordan offices if necessary, such measures could compromise the distribution of food assistance inside Syria and further increase transport costs. Access WFP s ability to deliver and distribute adequate food continues to be affected by access restrictions and shrinking humanitarian space. WFP continues to work with the UN Country Team and partners to maintain a presence on the ground, implement activities and continuously advocate for unhindered humanitarian access. Special measures are being taken to ensure the safe passage of humanitarian convoys, alternative mechanisms to areas not reachable by standard delivery modes are being considered and a public communication outreach programme has been implemented throughout Syria to sensitise populations to WFP s neutral and impartial humanitarian mandate. WFP is expanding its network of local partners and diversifying transport services. In order to ensure greater coverage across the country, WFP selects qualified and reliable local transporters with the best possible access to, and knowledge of, the delivery locations. Insufficient or late funding An increasing number and frequency of crises in other parts of the world, and/or prioritisation of donor resources to other sectors of the Syria crisis response, have resulted in significant funding shortfalls over 2014. In addition to inadequate funding, late confirmation of some contributions impacted on the timely arrival of food commodities, often leading to pipeline breaks and forcing continued reductions of the food basket. Long procurement lead times, approximately 1,5 months on average for the commodities included in the WFP basket, means that not only resource availability, but also timely arrival of funding, is crucial for ensuring WFP is able to provide assistance at planned scale. Considering these challenges, WFP will continue to advocate and strengthen resource mobilization efforts in order to avoid a reduction of WFP assistance. WFP/Syria 5