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WFP Syria Country Brief, February 2022

Countries
Syria
Sources
WFP
Publication date

In Numbers

  • 38,457 mt of food assistance delivered

  • US$ 3.2 m in cash-based transfers made

  • US$ 479 m six-month net funding requirement (March 2022 – August 2022)

  • 5.5 m people assisted in February 2022 (based on dispatches)

Operational Updates

• In February, WFP delivered food and nutrition assistance to 5.5 million people across its general food assistance (GFA), school feeding, nutrition, livelihoods, resilience and social safety nets activities in Syria.

• WFP dispatched GFA to some 5.3 million people across all 14 Syrian governorates. Of this, 27 percent was delivered through the cross-border operation from Turkey to areas of Idlib and western rural Aleppo governorates not accessible from inside Syria.

• According to the results of the nationwide food security and livelihoods assessment, 12 million people, 55 percent of the total population of the country, are facing acute food insecurity, and 1.9 million people are at risk of sliding into food insecurity. The number of food insecure remains extremely high and 51 percent higher than 2019 levels – pre-financial crisis and the outbreak of COVID19. The acute food-insecure figure includes 1.9 million people residing in camp settings who are considered fully dependent on humanitarian assistance.

• In February, WFP completed its emergency response to the severe winter weather conditions, which impacted tens of thousands of internally displaced people (IDPs) across north-western Syria. WFP reached more than 296,000 people with ready-to-eat rations since the emergency response started in December 2021.

• Hostilities subsided in the southern neighbourhoods of Al-Hasakeh city, north-eastern Syria, following the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) attack on Ghweiran prison, and the full and partial lockdowns imposed by Kurdish authorities across the north-east following the attack ended in February. Most of the 45,000 originally displaced returned to their homes.
As part of the emergency response, WFP provided emergency food assistance to newly displaced families during the initial days of displacement, reaching some 12,800 people. WFP also provided general food baskets to IDP returnees in Ghweiran neighbourhood, reaching 37,400 people in February.

• In February, the monthly average price of WFP’s standard reference food basket increased by two percent compared to January 2022, according to the latest WFP data. In February the nationwide average reference food basket price reached SYP 231,004 (USD 92.4 at the official exchange rate of SYP 2,500/USD), marking a new record high for the sixth consecutive month since WFP started price monitoring in 2013. The increase is mainly attributed to the ongoing fuel shortage countrywide, as well as to an increase in global food prices and inflation.