SYRIAN REFUGEES INTER-AGENCY REGIONAL UPDATE October 2015 HIGHLIGHTS Under-Secretary General for Humanitarian Affairs and Emergency Relief KEY FIGURES Coordinator Stephen O-Brien, in his statement to the Security Council on Syria on 27 October stressed that the Syrian crisis urgently requires a political 4 million solution which addresses the root causes of the conflict and meets the aspirations of the Syrian people who have suffered for far too long. In the Syrian refugees have fled to neighboring countries and North absence of such a solution, Mr. O-Brien hoped that the Council and relevant Africa Member States will continue to use their influence with the parties to the conflict to remind them to uphold their obligations under international humanitarian and human rights law, to distinguish between civilians and 1.73 million combatants, and to take all feasible precautions to avoid further civilian injury Syrian refugees with updated registration records including iris and loss of life. Full statement is available at scan enrolment http://reliefweb.int/sites/reliefweb.int/files/resources/USG%20Stephen%20O%2 0Brien_Statement%20to%20SC%20on%20Syria_27Oct2015.pdf 522,150 There has been no significant increase in the registration of new arrivals from Children (5-17 years old) enrolled Syria in the host countries in the region with the exception of Turkey, where in formal education (primary or the number of registration of Syrians who had previously arrived to Turkey secondary) in 2015 has increased significantly over the year. The net number of arrivals since 1 January 2015 is 380,040 persons, nearly all of whom were registered in 86,588 Turkey. The slowing or flattening of arrival rates is due to, among others, Households received unconditional, increasingly managed borders and restrictions to registration. Moreover, sector-specific or emergency cash further to ongoing verification exercises, the numbers of registered Syrian assistance in 2015 refugees has decreased in Lebanon and Egypt and only slightly increased in the rest of the region. Since January, a total of 213,085 Syrians were ‘inactivated’ 60,295 or had their cases ‘closed’ as they were deemed to no longer be present in the Households outside of camps host country. UNHCR conducts regular verification exercises to review their received assistance for shelter or shelter upgrades in 2015 needs and update its information about registered Syrian refugees. The UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon and the Presidents of the World Bank (WB) Group and the Islamic Development Bank Group have announced a 3RP 2015 FUNDING joint initiative to scale-up financing in the Middle East and North Africa to USD 4.5 billion (agency total help countries hosting significant refugee populations, countries impacted by requirements requested for 2015, not conflict, as well as countries that have significant investment needs to including government funding) achieve economic recovery. The proposed financing initiative consists of two distinct mechanisms - under the first mechanism, guarantees from donor Gap Funded countries would be leveraged in order to issue special bonds to finance 55% 45% economic recovery and reconstruction projects, and in the second mechanism, grants from donor countries would be used to provide concessional finance to 3RP OVERVIEW middle income countries of the region hosting the bulk of refugees. The financing initiative was presented at an international ministerial roundtable on USD 5.5 billion total funding the sidelines of the annual meetings of the WB and International Monetary requirements Fund (IMF). 4.3 m refugees (Projected December 2015) 5.9 million direct beneficiaries (Projected 1 December 2015) Inter-Agency Regional Update-Syrian Refugees OPERATIONAL CONTEXT The number of Syrian refugees in the neighbouring countries currently stands at 4,287,293 people. Recent months have seen a marked increase in the number of Syrians seeking refuge further afield, notably in Europe. Of the 819,218 arrivals in Europe by sea in 2015, 52 per cent are Syrians. The spike in Syrian refugees arriving in Europe, including from Syria directly, is mainly due to the loss of hope that a political solution will soon be found to end the war as well as to steadily deteriorating living conditions in exile, triggered by the humanitarian funding shortfall, felt by refugees in the region. Based on ongoing monitoring and assessments, surveys, focus group discussions, and daily interaction with refugees in Jordan, Lebanon, Egypt and Iraq, UNHCR has also identified limited livelihood and education opportunities, hurdles to renew legal residency, and refugees feeling increasingly unsafe as reasons for onward movement. The Syria crisis has unprecedented social and economic impacts on host countries in the region, overstretching basic services, diminishing trade and investment, increasing pressure on scarce natural resources, and at times affecting their stability and development pathways. Lebanon now hosts around nearly 1.1 million Syrian refugees, representing 25 per cent of the Lebanese population in the country. This is the world’s highest number of refugees per inhabitant. The findings of a recent vulnerability study found 70 per cent of Syrian refugee households in Lebanon live below the national poverty line of USD 3.84 per person per day – up from 50 per cent in 2014. The same study found an increase in refugees who do not have enough food and are therefore adopting harmful behaviours to cope, including buying food on credit, withdrawing children from school and begging, which has increased 30 per cent since last year. In Jordan, of the over 630,000 Syrian refugees, 86 per cent of people living outside refugee camps, in urban and rural areas across the country in increasing over-crowded or otherwise sub-standard accommodations, are now living below the national poverty line of USD 3.2 per person per day. In Turkey, the registration of Syrian refugees continues under the supervision of the Director General for Migration Management (DGMM). More than 2 million Syrian refugees have been registered, meaning almost one out of two Syrian refugees in the region is now hosted in Turkey, the vast majority in urban settings. There are currently more than 245,000 Syrian refugees registered in Iraq, with 97 per cent in the Kurdistan Region of Iraq (KR-I). In Egypt, there are currently 127,681 Syrians living in urban neighborhoods and shared accommodation. Syria Regional Refugee Response Inter-agency Information Sharing Portal - data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees 2 Inter-Agency Regional Update-Syrian Refugees The August monthly sectoral dashboards have been published on the Syria Regional Response Data Portal, detailing priorities, achievements and needs by country and regionally. The Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan 2015-2016 The 3RP is a country-driven, regionally coherent plan to address refugee protection and humanitarian needs whilst building the resilience of vulnerable people and impacted communities and strengthening the capacity of national delivery systems in the five most affected countries neighbouring Syria. The 3RP integrates and is aligned with existing and emerging national plans, including the Jordan Response Plan 2015 to the Syria Crisis, the Lebanon Crisis Response Plan, the Iraq SRP, and country responses in Turkey and Egypt. Requiring USD 5.5 billion in funding to directly support almost six million people, the 3RP is based on planning projections of up to 4.27 million refugees in countries neighbouring Syria by the end of 2015 and help to over a million vulnerable people in host communities. The appeal comprises USD 1 billion of host government requirements and USD 4.5 billion in agency requirements for United Nations (UN) agencies and Non-governmental organizations (NGOs). Beyond those receiving direct support, an additional 20.6 million people in impacted local communities will benefit from upgrades to local infrastructure and services in areas such as health, education, water and sewage, training and capacity building of service providers, and policy and administrative support to local and national authorities. The 3RP Progress Report (released on 25 June) is available here: www.3RPSyriaCrisis.org 2016 Planning The 3RP 2016 planning process is ongoing. A detailed Plan for 2016 will be finalized for the global launch of the Humanitarian Appeals on 7 December in Geneva. Syria Regional Refugee Response Inter-agency Information Sharing Portal - data.unhcr.org/syrianrefugees 3 Inter-Agency Regional Update-Syrian Refugees UPDATE ON ACHIEVEMENTS Protection Assessment reports from United Nations agencies, along with a range of NGOs, have repeatedly highlighted risks facing refugee women and girls. A report published by the International Rescue Committee (IRC) (2014) entitled, Are We Listening? Acting on Our Commitments to Women and Girls Affected by the Syrian Conflict highlighted a significant gap between policy and practice of gender-based violence (GBV) prevention and response in humanitarian operations responding to the Syrian crisis. As per a recommendation from this report, in 2015, UNFPA and UNHCR, in cooperation with UNICEF, the International Rescue Committee and the International Medical Corps conducted an evaluation of the humanitarian system’s response to GBV within the context of the Syrian crisis. The report titled ‘Evaluation of Implementation of 2005 Inter-Agency Standing Committee (IASC) Guidelines for Gender-based Violence Interventions in Humanitarian Settings