Our vision is a Lebanon where marginalized women and men (Lebanese, Palestinian and Syrian populations, including refugees) are protected and empowered to enjoy their basic rights and access services enabling them to live in dignity within a more equitable society.
For the last 4 years, Lebanon has been going through one of the worst economic crises in recent history. Inflation has remained at three-digit rates and wealth inequality has reached unprecedented levels. High unemployment rates, security issues and diminishing access to necessary public services disproportionately impact the country’s poorest groups.
As of 2023, over 80% of Lebanon’s population is below the poverty line, with the situation being more precarious for the country’s 1.5 million Syrian refugees, 90% of whom are unable to afford basic needs.
A political deadlock and a lack of consensus between the country’s ruling political parties, coupled with an increasingly inciteful and violent discourse against marginalized groups and rising safety and security threats, has placed Lebanon in the midst of a multifaceted and extendedly protracted systemic shock.
The refugee crisis in Lebanon
Lebanon continues to host the largest number of refugees per capita in the world, amounting to 1 out of every 4 individuals. The socioeconomic collapse of the last few years has made basic needs attainment even more difficult for both Syrian refugees and Lebanese host communities, and has exasperated social tensions.
An inciteful discourse propagated by mainstream media and political actors has led to the development of a hostile environment vis-à-vis the country’s marginalized groups, especially refugees. This has made already-limited services less accessible and has facilitated the proliferation of instances of physical violence, including but not limited to tent burnings, mass expulsion from communal areas and public beatings.
A resident of Btedai ITS (Informal tented settlement) washes his hands with water from an Oxfam provided water tank. Photo: Adrian Hartrick/Oxfam
Oxfam in Lebanon
Oxfam has been working in Lebanon since 1993. We provide humanitarian assistance to vulnerable people affected by conflict and operate in the sectors of inclusive economic development, good governance and gender justice at a local and national levels.
Oxfam in Lebanon adopts a highly contextual approach throughout its endeavors, working through local partners to achieve its strategic objectives and focusing on empowering the voices of marginalized women, men and people with diverse SOCIESC, including refugee, migrant and host communities. This allows us to better prepare local communities and scale up our humanitarian interventions in the face of a new emergency, or the expansion of a crisis.
Our humanitarian, economic justice and governance programmes function as umbrellas for our various sectoral interventions, which include protection and resilience, renewable energy, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), social entrepreneurship, decent employment, Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR), women’s political participation, civic engagement and social cohesion, among many others.
More recently, Oxfam in Lebanon’s five-year strategy (2023-2028) has prioritized the use of innovative and accessible financial solutions for social enterprises, renewable energy in humanitarian and long-term interventions and greater investment in business continuity. As part of efforts to adapt to deteriorating economic conditions, Oxfam in Lebanon ramped up its Cash Plus programming, coupling its cash assistance endeavours with complementary social protection modalities to support local communities in Lebanon.
Oxfam’s Humanitarian Programme in Lebanon aims to increase the resilience and shock-readiness of the country’s population to be able to withstand current and future crises. It does so by centralizing local leadership for service provision and delivery and adopting a Community-Based Protection (CBP) lens to its programming. The Humanitarian Programme operates in cross-sectoral fashion, allowing improved access to basic services, decent infrastructure and WASH amenities and strengthening food and economic security through local civil society actors.
Oxfam’s Economic Justice Programme in Lebanon aims to support the development of an inclusive economic model that provides durable solutions for the country’s vulnerable groups. We empower local social entrepreneurship efforts and Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) by providing technical capacity building training and financing schemes. In addition, our Economic Justice programme focuses on providing decent working opportunities and matching vulnerable job seekers with local businesses for productive communal outcomes. In its goal to promote a productive economic model and increase the population’s resilience to crisis, Oxfam has worked on empowering farmers, supporting agricultural and waste management projects and improving local economic productivity. In addition, Oxfam in Lebanon has played a leading role on the level of research and policy, establishing unique consortiums and facilitating policy discussions on a local and national level.
Find out more about Oxfam in Lebanon’s Economic Justice programming.
Oxfam’s Governance Programme in Lebanon is centered around understanding power structures, power relations and dynamics of influence across intersecting networks of actors. Its primary goal is to support the development of accountability and transparency at the local, civil society and governmental levels. Moreover, we work on improving social cohesion by addressing social, political and economic sources of tensions through local endeavors. Our governance initiatives include improving access to and awareness of Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) and enabling the voices of women and marginalized groups, particularly in the field of political participation and civic engagement. Oxfam in Lebanon continues to locally ground our efforts to contribute to a wider civic space that addresses issues of oppression, lack of access to freedoms, and violations of rights.
Find out more about Oxfam in Lebanon’s Governance programming.
Since 2019, Oxfam in Lebanon started to implement feasible, durable and green solutions in response to increasing poverty levels and service deterioration. We have invested in the construction of solar water pumping and water chlorination systems and initiated maintenance and rehabilitation efforts, thus ensuring safe access to water to thousands of people throughout the last few years, most importantly during power cuts. Moreover, Oxfam designed a capacity building curriculum encompassing technical, financial, environmental and social aspects of sustainable renewable energy sources and provided training for over 150 stakeholders including both governmental and non-governmental organizations. Finally, Oxfam in Lebanon’s role in renewable energy went beyond technical input to include thought leadership through assessing solarization potentials for water stations across the country, developing standard operating procedures, conducting solar energy market assessments and leading on water-energy nexus research.
Find out more about Oxfam in Lebanon’s Renewable Energy projects.