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Lebanon + 1 more

WFP Lebanon - Food Security and Vulnerability Analysis of Lebanese Residents (July 2022)

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HIGHLIGHTS

The economic, political, and social crisis that has affected Lebanon since October 2019 further intensified after June 2021 and the country has seen a significant deterioration in the wellbeing of its population .

The lifting of state subsidies on medicine, fuel, and inputs costs, the depreciation of the Lebanese Lira, protracted inflation, and soaring international prices continue to threaten Lebanese households’ ability to meet basic needs .

Since the start of the crisis, Lebanon has been without a fully functioning government for nearly 20 months.
The current government was formed in September 2021, 13 months after the resignation of the previous government in August 2020 in the wake of the explosion at the port of Beirut . The current government assumed a caretaker function in May 2022 after the parliamentary elections .

Needs Analysis

By December 2021 , 53 percent of the Lebanese resident population, corresponding to.06 million people in 436 ,500 families, was in need of social assistance . Since the beginning of 2021 , over 400 ,000 more people have fallen into poverty as a result of rising food insecurity, high unemployment, stagnating household incomes, and poor access to health services and education .

This estimate is based on the Household Deprivation Score (HDS), a measure of non monetary poverty developed by WFP Lebanon . The HDS is an index that ranks families on the basis of the number of deprivations they face across five minimum living standards : i) food, ii) health, iii) education, iv) shelter, and v) livelihoods.

Food Security In January 2021, food insecurity affected 30 percent of the population . This already concerning food security situation further deteriorated in the second half of 2021 , reaching an average of 46 percent of food insecure families between June and December 2021.

As of December 2021, 57 percent of Lebanese families faced severe economic challenges to access food, up from 45 percent in June 2020 . Seventy -six percent of households employed coping mechanisms that affect the capacity of families to generate income, thus lessening their resilience to future shocks.

In addition, 33 percent of the Lebanese population could not meet minimum dietary requirements, over ten percentage points above what was recorded in earlier rounds of data collection . The diversity of the diets consumed by the Lebanese population has also reduced . For instance, the number of households who were able to consume meat, poultry, fish or eggs at least one time per week declined from 82 to 65 percent between June 2020 and December 2021.

Food insecurity was strongly linked to unemployment and unstable livelihoods, lack of access to health services, education, and inadequate shelter.

Households headed by women, large families with many dependents (children and/or older persons), and the presence of household members with chronic illness or disabilities were also more likely to be food insecure .