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Qualitative Research on Social Tensions, Lebanon Round 1, Year 1

Countries
Lebanon
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Sources
UNDP
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Executive Summary

Introduction

A ‘tensions monitoring system’ has been established by UNDP, UNHCR and other partners to analyse and provide feedback on intercommunity relations to various stakeholders. A key element of the monitoring system is the ARK Group DMCCimplemented regular perception surveys (RPS) on social tensions throughout Lebanon which have been conducted in five waves. These studies survey 5,000 people across 26 districts and provide data on perceptions of social stability and tensions between host communities and Syrians. To complement RPS and deepen the tensions monitoring system UNDP commissioned this longitudinal qualitative immersion research specifically to gather rich insights from Syrians and Lebanese host communities. This report presents the main findings of the first round (FebruaryMarch, 2019) from four Governorates.
This immersion research adopted the Reality Check Approach whereby researchers live with families and participate in their everyday lives for several days and nights. It relies on many, iterative and informal conversations with families, their neighbours and people they interact with during the course of their everyday lives augmented by direct observation and experience. Within each of the eight Governorates, one location has been selected based on key determinants developed collaboratively with stakeholders. In this first round, locations were in: Bekaa Valley IS (a study location with high concentration of Syrian refugees), North Lebanon (a study location which is prosperous Maronite Christian, no IS and mostly pre-crisis Syrian workers), South Akkar IS (a study location which is both poor and has a high concentration of Syrian refugees), and Mt. Lebanon coastal village (a study location mostly populated by Lebanese Christians with no IS).
Researchers lived with sixteen families (3 Syrian and 1 Lebanese in each location ) and had conversations with over 700 people including neighbours, local business owners, street vendors, service providers, shop owners and landlords during this first study round. Of the Syrian families lived with five lived in IS and 7 in rented accommodation.