ReliefWeb

Summary of major revisions made to the emergency plan of action:

Algeria was hit in late 2018 and early 2019 by four separate incidences of cold weather affecting between 25 – 35 Departments. The first waves of cold weather occurred, followed by three episodes of very cold wave in a number of remote areas as follows:

 11-13 January 2019 affecting 25 Departments

 24-25 January 2019 affecting 13 Departments

 4 -7 February 2019 affecting 15 Departments

 21-22 March 2019 affecting 5 Departments

To date, ARC has assisted 800 families from their own resources. This DREF operation will support an additional 900 families with food and household items due to the repetitive worsening of the weather led to expand the reach of the operation based on humanitarian needs.

ARC initially planned to support the families with food, household items and tents, however, the response in the first phase revealed that the need for tents was lower than estimated initially. Families who lost their shelter were hosted by relatives or the community supported them to purchase tents. To date, only 70 tents have been distributed covering the needs of the assisted 800 families, therefore, it has been decided that the tents will be replaced by additional food and household items for the newly affected families.

Meanwhile, the bad weather conditions have contributed to increased prices of fuel, which has increased the price of food items in hard to reach areas. These two factors have lowered substantially the capacity of poor families to purchase food, hence increasing the number of families requiring support. The budget has been revised as the initial estimated price for the food parcels per family is significantly lower than the actual price, therefore the cost of the food parcels was adjusted in the revised budget.

The latest assessments revealed that the remote communities are in dire need of health awareness sessions, therefore it is planned to train approximately 100 volunteers in the coming weeks to deliver health awareness sessions during the distributions.

The revised DREF plans to reach an additional 900 families (4,500 individuals) with the following assistance by family, with ARC reaching an additional 800 families (4,000 individuals) from their own budget.

ARC continues to reassess the needs in the newly affected areas and will re-start the next phase in the coming couple of weeks. Three months extension of the DREF operation would be necessary to complete the international procurement (by IFRC) and the distributions to the affected families. This operation will now end on 1 August 2019.