The United Nations indicated that international contributions to the Lebanon Response Plan (LRP) reached $281m in the first quarter of 2025 and represented 9% of the $3bn that the LPR appealed for to assist the affected Lebanese and non-Lebanese individuals in the country during 2025. It also noted that it carried $300m from funding it received in 2024, which is equivalent to 10% of the total funds it tried to raise in 2025, and which resulted in aggregate funding of $581m in the first quarter of 2025. As such, it said that international contributions covered 19% of the funds it requested, resulting in a funding gap of $2.42bn, or 81%, for 2025 so far.  The LRP 2024-2025 is a joint initiative between the Lebanese government and international and national partners that aims to address humanitarian needs in a way that is moving towards stability, as well as to apply a humanitarian, development and peace approach. The LRP also aims to promote progress against development objectives in the longer-term. The plan comes after the expiration of the LCRP for the 2015-2016, the 2017-2021, and the 2022-2023 periods.  It pointed out that financial disbursements for social stability reached $102.4m in the first quarter of 2025, or 17.6% of the total, followed by water, sanitation, and hygiene (WaSH) with $79.2m (13.6%), support to the healthcare sector with $76.1m (13.1%), the education sector with $71.1m (12.2%), social protection with $64m (11%), agriculture with $55.4m (9.5%), basic assistance with $50m (8.6%), livelihoods with $28.2m (4.8%), shelter with $21.7m (3.7%), nutrition with $7.93m (1.4%), coordination and common services with $0.95m (0.2%), site management coordination with $0.67m (0.1%) and logistics with $30,000 (0.01%). It added that it has not allocated yet the remaining $24.3m (4.2%).In parallel, the UN indicated that international contributions for the basic assistance track of the LRP reached $34.6m in the first quarter of 2025 compared to $40m in the first quarter of 2024. They represented 7% of the $501.8m that the LRP appealed for to assist affected Lebanese and non-Lebanese individuals in the country for 2025. It also noted that $15.3m were carried over from funding received in 2024, which is equivalent to 3% of the total appealed funds, and resulted in total funding of $50m in the first quarter of 2025. As such, it said that international contributions covered 10% of the funds appealed, resulting in a funding gap of $452m, or 90%, for 2025 so far.  Also, the UN indicated that it distributed the LRP assistance to nearly 1.74 million individuals across Lebanon in the first quarter of 2025 who consisted of 148 million displaced Syrians, or 85.4% of the total, followed by 220,732 vulnerable Lebanese citizens (12.7%), 22,490 Palestinian refugees from Syria (1.3%), 3,000 Palestinian refugees in Lebanon (0.2%), 495 migrants (0.03%), 7,530 individuals from other nationalities (0.4%). Moreover, it said that the LRP disbursed $30.7m in regular cash transfers in the first quarter of 2025 to cover the basic needs of vulnerable households and children.  Further, it noted that it provided regular cash grants to 309,477 households for basic needs in the first quarter of 2025, and that it deliveredin-kind assistance to 37,238 households in Lebanon who were affected by seasonal or emergency shocks in the first quarter of 2025. The UN indicated that it has raised under the LCPR and LRP $1.29bn in 2015, $1.28bn in 2016, $1.24bn in 2017, $1.2bn in 2018, $1.23bn in 2019, $1.44bn in 2020, $1.19bn in 2021, $1.17bn in 2022, $1.3bn in 2023, and $1.63bn in 2024. (ICE BEIRUT)

Fonte notizia: Byblos Bank, June 23 - 28, 2025