Lebanon

One month since the massive blast in Beirut, tens of thousands of vulnerable people are unable to rebuild their homes, with a single front door costing two months’ worth of a minimum-wage salary, warned Oxfam today. 

The 21 billionaires in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), all of them men, saw their wealth increase by nearly $10 billion since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, almost double the estimated amount required to rebuild Lebanon's shattered capital, while 45 million more people in the region could be pushed to poverty as a result of the pandemic, a new Oxfam report revealed today.

Oxfam is working with local partners to assess how it can help those who have lost their homes and livelihoods in the Beirut explosion. 

The coronavirus pandemic is fast pushing developing countries toward a debt crisis that would be catastrophic for their fight against poverty, with the likelihood of multi-billion-dollar defaults that will hurt the entire global economy, warned Oxfam ahead of the G20 Finance Ministers’ meeting this weekend (July 18-19).

This research project aimed to improve Oxfam’s understanding of the protection and livelihood challenges faced by refugees from Syria as well as the protection concerns arising from the coping strategies used to try to meet those challenges.

The impact of the Syria crisis on Lebanon is immense and multidimensional. This report is the result of research by Oxfam and the American University, Beirut in an effort to gain a better insight into the lives and struggles of poor Lebanese households alongside Syrian and Palestinian refugee populations in Lebanon.

Since the outbreak of the crisis in Syria in March 2011, Lebanon has felt the impact politically, socially and economically. More than four years into the crisis and with an all-out war on its doorstep, the country is experiencing ever greater repercussions.

A lack of funding has led the World Food Programme to significantly reduce food vouchers for refugees living outside of camps in Jordan in August, while maintaining the same levels of assistance for camp residents.

Rich countries have paid out less than half the amount they originally pledged to help countries recover from a snapshot of three major humanitarian crises, according to Oxfam.

"The new restrictions on entry for Syrians into Lebanon are part of a worrying, wider trend reflecting quite simply less and less opportunities for Syrians to escape conflict inside Syria," said Camilla Jelbart Mosse, Oxfam's Syria Campaign Manager.