About 6,080 resource-poor Lebanese rural households and Syrian refugees will benefit from a new US$12 million project that aims to increase the income of smallholder dairy producers and processors, as well as to increase employment opportunities for young Lebanese in communities affected by the Syrian crisis and young Syrian refugees.
The financing agreement for the Harmonized Actions for Livestock Enhanced Production and Processing Project (HALEPP) was signed on 30 July by Gilbert F. Houngbo, President of the International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD), and Hassan Lakkis, Minister for Agriculture of Lebanon, and includes a $4.9 million loan and $0.6 million grant from IFAD.
The project will be co-financed by Switzerland through the Facility for Refugees, Migrants, Forced Displacement and Rural Stability – FARMS ($2.3 million), a grant through the European Union Regional Trust Fund in Response to the Syrian Crisis – the Madad Fund ($2.2 million), the Government of Lebanon ($1.8 million), and the beneficiaries themselves ($0.2 million).
Agriculture, particularly the milk and dairy sector, is an important source of income for poor rural communities, home to just 13 percent of Lebanon’s population. Generating 4.6 percent of Lebanon’s total economic output, the agricultural sector employs 20-25 percent of the country’s workforce, with 20 percent of households classified as very poor. A high percentage of Syrian refugees work in farming in the main agricultural areas of North Lebanon and the Bekaa Valley where poverty rates are estimated at 36-38 percent.
HALEPP will largely focus on the poorest Lebanese communities most affected by the influx of Syrian refugees, as well as the Syrian refugees themselves, by implementing the project in the poorest of 1,653 cadasters (a system of land registry) in the country. About 15 percent of these cadasters are home to 67 percent of the most deprived Lebanese and 87 percent of Syrian refugees.
The new project, expected to benefit 28,576 rural people, will enhance the competitiveness of smallholder dairy producers by increasing productivity and the supply of quality milk.
Original source: IFAD
Published on 02 August 2019
