INTRODUCTION

Lebanon has been battling with a series of unprecedented crises that have intensified pre-existing structural weaknesses as a result of years of neglect, political deadlock, and budget mismanagement with minimal capacity of the government to respond. The Government of Lebanon was not prepared to respond to shocks, let alone an economic crisis ranked among the most severe crises episodes globally since the midnineteenth century, with inflation rates recording highest in the world at 139% followed by Zimbabwe and Argentina , The COVID-19 pandemic rated between the top 6 worst pandemics in history 1 , and the Beirut port explosion rated as one of the biggest non-nuclear explosions in history as stated by the BBC.

In July 2022, the country was downgraded to a lower middle-income country for the first time in 25 years. Over the course of those crises, the local currency has lost more than 98% of its value since its economic collapse began in 2019 recording an all-time high devaluation of 70% between May 2022 and May 2023 leading to high inflation rates, mostly affecting the North Governorate. That said, Lebanese and refugee households face major challenges in accessing food, healthcare, education, and other basic services leading those households to increasingly rely on negative coping strategies such as child labour, child marriage, withdrawing children from schools, excessive debt, undereating to make ends meet.

To address the current situation, the INMAA consortium including Save the Children, Plan International, Akkarouna and LOST, is delivering an EU funded project under the title of Sustainable Social Protection and Livelihood Solutions for Severely Vulnerable Households in Lebanon implemented in Akkar and Baalbek. The project targets vulnerable Lebanese and Syrian refugee households supporting them to become less reliant on social protection schemes, paving their way to sustainable pathways out of extreme poverty through focusing on productive inclusion (graduation) by bridging social assistance and livelihoods/ resilience pathways and promoting self-reliance.

For this, the program has four primary results for participants, linked to outcomes in social protection, livelihoods promotion, financial inclusion, and social empowerment.

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