Since September 2004, DRC have been implementing projects in Lebanon, a country that hosts approximately 400,000 Palestinian and 50,000 Iraqi refugees. We are currently implementing several projects in favor of both groups. Over the years, the core activities within the programme have changed according to needs and the development of the projects.

Palestinian refugees
Ongoing activities in support of the Palestinians include national and regional level advocacy, legal aid, and shelter reconstruction and other material support for 3,000 so-called ’non-ID’ (undocumented) refugees, scattered throughout Lebanon, plus educational and livelihood support for an estimated 750 marginalised Palestinian youth in the largest and most volatile refugee camp in Lebanon – Ein el-Helweh, in the southern city of Saida.

Iraqi refugees
DRC’s programmme for Iraqis seeks to increase and the outreach of NGOs providing services to 4,000 Iraqis throughout Lebanon, with an emphasis on under-served peripheral areas, while directly meeting urgent needs not covered by others NGOs. Activities include routine liaison and information exchange with Iraqi refugee communities, mobilization of local NGOs through funded sub-projects, and advocacy at local and national levels. Additionally, DRC provides direct support through non-food winterization and educational assistance, and manages a special needs fund to meet urgent individual and household needs on an ad hoc basis.

Coordination, construction and capacitybuilding
DRC also coordinates closely with all relevant stakeholders and service providers, including UNRWA and UNHCR, Lebanese and Palestinian authorities, and local and international NGOs. Moreover, DRC has provided emergency relief, livelihood support, community infrastructure, repair/improvements as well as technical support for housing reconstruction. The latest projects aim at capacity-building Lebanese authorities and local NGOs as well as marginalised Palestinian youth in the largest of the Palestinian camps, Ein el-Hilweh camp (EHC).

Displacement

• An estimated 400,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom fled from Palestine in 1948. Approximately half of these people live in 12 official UNRWA camps, while the other half lives in dispersed Palestinian communities called “gatherings”. According to the latest figure from the DRC database, 2,122 of the Palestinians are non-ID refugees, most of whom entered the country in 1970 when the PLO relocated from Amman to Beirut. These people haven’t been able to register neither with Lebanese authorities nor with UNRWA, and therefore remain in legal limbo.

• Some 50,000 Iraqi refugees who fled the ongoing sectarian violence in Iraq. DRC estimates that in the area of 50,000 Iraqis current live in Lebanon. The majority of these Iraqi refugees do not have legal permission to stay in Lebanon. They live in hiding with no access to social services or legal employment, and they are continuously subject to arrest and deportation. A small number of Palestinian refugees from Iraq also entered Lebanon since 2003.

Humanitarian needs
Many major needs among Iraqi refugees and Palestinians in Lebanon are protection related. They need legal status in order to get employed and provide for their families, gain access to better housing, education for the children and proper health care. Recently, Palestinians in Lebanon have been entitled to an ID-card by the government – the next step is for the relevant authorities to accept the card and hence provide the Palestinians with the basic services that they need.

Partners and donors in Lebanon:

• ECHO
• BPRM
• British Foreign & Commonwealth Office
• KVINFO (Danish Centre for Information on Gender, Equality and Ethnicity)
• Canadian International Development Agency