Enhancing The Role Of Union Of Municipalities To Respond To Refugees' And Host Communities' Needs In Beirut/Mt Lebanon

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Following the July 2006 Israeli war, UN-Habitat Lebanon implemented a project titled “Good governance for enhanced post-war reconstruction in South Lebanon” which aimed at enhancing the capacities of affected families and municipalities to better manage the reconstruction process.

Within this project, three Regional Technical Offices (RTOs) were established in three targeted Unions of Municipalities (UoMs); Tyre, Bint Jbeil and Jabal Amel. The RTO's engineers and field officers, being part of the local communities, were able, in a short period of time, to mobilize and immediately provide assistance to affected families as well as to concerned municipalities. By assisting the municipalities with rapid technical assessments of the buildings needing reconstruction work, and providing information and guidelines for house owners with ABCs in repair work, the RTOs contributed to a broad and swift rehabilitation process with the local actors at the steering wheel. /* Style Definitions */ table.MsoNormalTable {mso-style-name:"Vanlig tabell"; mso-tstyle-rowband-size:0; mso-tstyle-colband-size:0; mso-style-noshow:yes; mso-style-priority:99; mso-style-qformat:yes; mso-style-parent:""; mso-padding-alt:0cm 5.4pt 0cm 5.4pt; mso-para-margin:0cm; mso-para-margin-bottom:.0001pt; mso-pagination:widow-orphan; font-size:11.0pt; font-family:"Calibri","sans-serif"; mso-ascii-font-family:Calibri; mso-ascii-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-fareast-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-fareast-theme-font:minor-fareast; mso-hansi-font-family:Calibri; mso-hansi-theme-font:minor-latin; mso-bidi-font-family:"Times New Roman"; mso-bidi-theme-font:minor-bidi; mso-ansi-language:EN-US; mso-fareast-language:EN-US;}

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Based on the previous experience UN-Habitat now replicates the RTO model to support the efforts of providing shelter and services for Syrian refugees as well as meeting the needs of the house communities, by enhancing the role of local authorities. In the first pilot phase two RTOs will be established under the mandate of two Unions of Municipalities within the Saida/Zahrani and Chouf districts. After the pilot RTOs are put in place and anticipated system and mechanisms tested, the approach will be applied in more Unions with further geographical outreach. The aim is to establish a model that could work within all Unions of Municipalities in Lebanon, covering more than 800 of the 1000 Municipalities in the country. To ensure that the project is able to rapidly apply the model in new Unions, a second batch of another three Unions of Municipalities is identified.

This proposed Project, with a focus on enhancing the involvement of municipalities in responding to the needs of Syrian refugees, would i) complement the efforts of the Government, UNHCR, and other UN, national and international agencies, ii) accelerate the assistance process addressed to refugees, and iii) reduce the tension between host communities and refugees.

The goal of the project is to respond to the immediate needs of Syrian refugees and host communities in different areas of Lebanon while laying the foundation for medium and long term sustainable solutions.

In line with the project goal, the proposed action is planned to achieve two main objectives:

 -    Accelerate the accommodation process of refugee families through the active involvement of municipalities and unions of municipalities in identifying, assessing and facilitating sound shelter facilities that comply with UNHCR standards and norms. 

 -    Support host communities through the implementation of sound projects that would respond to community groups needs and would enhance the delivery of basic urban services taking into account the existing and forthcoming numbers of refugees.

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The strategy would include the following:

 At the national level, UN-Habitat has been coordinating and will continue collaboration with UNHCR, the Ministry of Social Affairs (MoSA), the Ministry of Interior and Municipalities (MoIM) and other concerned governmental institutions and International agencies. This is being done through taking part in donor meetings as well as working groups, mainly shelter and WASH, and inter-agency meetings.

 At the regional levels, in addition to municipalities and unions of municipalities, bureaus and representatives of government and international and UN agencies would constantly be engaged in the project processes, notably the Qaimmaqams (Heads of district/Caza leading the regional security cells), UNHCR and other international agencies regional offices. The project will also collaborate and complement on-going and recent UN initiatives in the targeted areas dealing with issues related to Syrian refugees.

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The project will set up a model whereby unions of municipalities, municipalities, and communities are actively and constantly engaged in responding to the needs of the Syrian refugees. Partnerships with key local actors represent a core value for this project. The involvement of local actors will prevent possible bottleneck situations in the response, as it will not be limited to agencies already concerned with overstretched capacities.

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