Lebanon

The socio-economic desk score dataset includes the socio-economic scores of the households that have taken the 2020 Vulnerability Assessment of Syrian Refugees (VASyR) assessment. The desk score is a Proxy Means Test (PMT) score, available for all population, that predicts the economic vulnerability of households. The dataset includes the desk scores of the case numbers since 2016. In Lebanon, the desk score is revised annually and used by Lebanon Crisis Response Plan (LCRP) cash actors for the identification and selection of beneficiaries for multi-purpose cash assistance.

The assistance dataset includes the assistance history of the households that have taken the 2020 Vulnerability Assessment of Syrian Refugees (VASyR) assessment. The dataset is extracted from Refugees Assistance Information System (RAIS) which is an online Inter-Agency web application used by Lebanon Crisis Response Plan (LCRP) partners in Lebanon for tracking and reporting assistance provided to persons of concern to UNHCR.

Since the onset of the Syrian crisis, the humanitarian community has increasingly relied on cash-based assistance provided from donor contributions and implemented by aid partners under the Lebanon Crisis Response Plan to support the affected population. In November 2017, the World Food Programme (WFP) joined the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) and non-governmental organisations (NGO) in the delivery of multi-purpose cash (MPC) to assist the most economically vulnerable Syrian refugee households to meet their basic needs. This study aims to measure the short-term (12 months or less) and long-term (more than 12 months) causal impact of the $173.50 and $175 MPC assistance provided by WFP and UNHCR respectively, over and above the $27 per person per month assistance, as well as the impact of discontinuation from MPC on the well-being of Syrian refugees. This report presents the causal impact on multiple dimensions of well-being, namely household expenditures, food security, housing, water, sanitation and hygiene (WASH), education, employment, health and decision-making. The key take-away messages from the study are: 1. The impact of MPC materialised across most dimensions of well-being in the long-term, indicating the importance of households' access to a longer duration of MPC. 2. The benefits of MPC fade for many indicators within 4 to 10 months after discontinuation, and households' well-being returned to pre-assistance levels for most indicators, and dropped slightly below the pre-assistance baseline for others. 3. The findings would suggest that there are benefits to instituting longer cash cycles and/or linking MPC to other services through a 'cash plus' approach to expand and extend the positive impact of cash on beneficiary households and ensure sustainable impact. A total of 11,457 households were visited and used in this analysis, which constitutes one of the largest samples among impact evaluations conducted in Lebanon to date.