Vulnerability Assessment of Syrian Refugees in Lebanon

Since the outbreak of hostilities in Syria in early 2011, there has been a massive influx of refugees into Lebanon. By the end of October 2013 the official UNHCR figure for Syrian refugees in Lebanon had risen to over 800,000 individuals, not including thousands of Lebanese returnees and Palestinians refugees from Syria (PRS). This is 15 times the number compared to a year ago and six times the number of UNHCR-registered Syrian refugees at the beginning of 2013. With a total population of approximately 4.7 million,1 out of 6 persons in Lebanon is registered refugee. The sudden increase of assistance required, together with increasingly limited resources, required the humanitarian community to focus efforts on optimizing the cost-effectiveness of assistance.

To gain knowledge of the living conditions of Syrian refugees, and to inform decision-making and re-designing processes for programmatic activities, UNHCR, UNICEF and WFP agreed to conduct a joint multi-sectorial household survey of the registered and pre-registered Syrian refugee population in Lebanon. The assessment was designed so that accurate, multi-sectorial vulnerability criteria could be derived for the implementation of humanitarian assistance.

A concept note, including the methodology and a multi-sectorial questionnaire, was agreed upon and drafted by the UN in collaboration with the Government of Lebanon (GoL). See appendix 3 for the survey methodology and appendix 7 for the questionnaire.