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UN-Habitat Lebanon Unions of Municipalities' COVID-19 Rapid Assessment Report, May 2020

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Lebanon is a highly urbanized country, at almost 90 per cent urban by population (UN DESA Population Division, 2019), with close to 65 per cent of its inhabitants living in five main urban agglomerations: Beirut, Saida, Tripoli, Tyre and Zahleh (UN-Habitat, 2009). The country hosts around 1.5 million Syrian refugees in an overall population of approximately 6.8 million – making it the country with the highest number of Syrian refugees per capita in the world (UNHCR, 2019; World Bank, 2018a). In addition, it has a sizeable community of Palestinian refugees and refugees from Iraq and other countries (UNHCR, 2019).

Over 1.5 million Lebanese live under the poverty line, with the majority of its refugees – over 70 per cent – also living below the poverty line (United Nations Lebanon, 2020). Prior to the outbreak of the coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic, Lebanon already struggled with serious socioeconomic, spatial and environmental challenges related to rapid urbanization and a weakly regulated governmental framework. The pre-existing situation of poor housing, overcrowded neighbourhoods, substandard basic services including water, electricity, solid waste management and disposal, high pollution and inefficient transport have only been exacerbated by the COVID-19 crisis. The majority of vulnerable Lebanese and refugee communities live in poor dense urban neighbourhoods and experience similar challenges as repeatedly highlighted across the world for populations living in slum-like conditions – a severe challenge to observe universal precautionary measures, including physical distancing and extensive water, sanitation and hygiene (WaSH) measures (UN-Habitat, 2020).

In addition to this complex urban environment, weak governance and political instability have left local authorities with limited financial and administrative support from the national level and hence capacity to respond to largescale emergencies or plan well for the future. The ongoing Syrian refugee crisis is one example where municipalities, already struggling to provide adequate services to the Lebanese population, face additional pressure to support refugee communities. While around 20 per cent of the Syrian refugee population is hosted in informal tented settlements (in mainly rural locations) and supported under the Lebanon Crisis Response Plan (LCRP), the remaining population reside in poor urban neighbourhoods and fall de facto under municipality responsibility (UNHCR, UNICEF and WFP, 2019). The COVID-19 pandemic further highlights the lack of decentralized support and empowerment of local authorities in Lebanon. Being at the front line of the response at the local level, it is clear that a critical gap exists and needs to be urgently addressed, if Lebanese local authorities are to weather future emergencies and avoid complete breakdown of services and functionality. Both of these crises – the Syrian refugee crisis and COVID-19 – are additionally drastically compounded by the severe and ongoing socioeconomic crisis.

In this context, UN-Habitat Lebanon undertook two assessments of local authority capacities across the country. A first, remote assessment took place from 25 to 27 March 2020, involving 10 unions of municipalities and individual municipalities across 8 districts (Aley, Beirut,
Chouf, Kesserwan, El-Metn, Saida, Tripoli and Tyre). The findings of the remote assessment highlighted the urgent need for immediate interventions to address the challenges encountered by local authorities in response to COVID-19, mainly the need for infection prevention and control (IPC) materials and supplies, creation of isolation centres, basic assistance to families in need, etc. This assessment was subsequently complemented by a rapid field assessment.

The aim of the rapid assessment was to obtain baseline information and data concerning the COVID-19 response at the local level, in order to establish a comprehensive strategy for COVID-19 support in these same areas. The assessment involved 34 unions of municipalities covering 548 municipalities, in addition to 5 individual municipalities:
Baalbeck, Bcharre, Bourj Hammoud, Nabatiyeh (officially known as Nabatiyeh El Tahta), and Tripoli. Together these cover 52 per cent of all municipalities in Lebanon. The selection of the unions and municipalities was based on a combination of the size of the unions and their exposure to COVID-19 at the time of selection; unions containing a number of vulnerable municipalities experiencing COVID-19 cases were selected.

From 6 to 15 April 2020, four field teams – comprising engineers, architects and social development experts – conducted the rapid assessment. A checklist (Annex 1) was developed to help the field teams compile qualitative data across different sectors/issues that are in line with the circular issued by the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities (MoIM) on 19 March 2020. The checklist aimed to look into the following areas in response to COVID-19 while ensuring that the needs of the most vulnerable populations (elderly, children, women, youth, people with disabilities) were considered throughout the rapid assessment:

  • Measures undertaken by unions of municipalities to contain COVID-19.

  • Coordination structures/platforms.

  • Main actors that are already contributing/willing to contribute.

  • The need for isolation centres.

  • Water and sanitation issues.

  • Emergency needs requested by the unions/municipalities, including IPC/personal protective equipment (PPE) and general hygiene equipment, supplies, awareness/ training, etc.

  • Urgent livelihood needs