Lessons from Oxfam’s Interventions in Tripoli, Lebanon
Social protection in Lebanon operates through a fragmented landscape of entitlements and parallel interventions, where access to support is shaped less by need than by political affiliation and localised social networks. This reflects a broader political economy characterised by clientelist systems and fragmented authority, which limits the development of a coherent, state-led social protection system.
Lebanon’s main formal social protection instrument is the National Poverty Targeting Programme (NPTP), established in 2011 and implemented by the Ministry of Social Affairs. Until 2020, it functioned primarily as a registry and referral mechanism, facilitating access to health, education, and Social Development Centers for poor and vulnerable Lebanese households.
Following the 2019 economic collapse, it expanded to include direct cash support at scale. Cash assistance has since become a central form of support for vulnerable Lebanese, enabling households to cover basic needs. This expansion builds on an existing landscape where cash assistance had already been widely used for Syrian refugees in Lebanon since around 2012-13, following the onset of the refugee crisis, primarily through internationally funded humanitarian programmes.
However, a recent systematic review and meta-analysis finds these effects to be modest and short-lived, with limited evidence of sustained improvements in income or labour market outcomes, particularly in contexts of protracted crisis. In practice, cash tends to ease immediate pressure without substantially altering the underlying conditions that shape vulnerability.
Cash-plus approaches have thus emerged in response. In Lebanon, these have taken multiple forms, including combinations of cash assistance with vocational training, work-based learning, and enterprise support, as well as, in some cases, referrals to complementary services.