Relief to Recovery (R2R): Transitioning conflict-affected families in Syria from relief towards recovery and self-reliance



Contract partner: Caritas Österreich Country: Syrien Funding amount: € 1.000.000,00 Project start: 01.12.2020 End: 29.02.2024

Short Description:

Overall goal


The aim of the project is to contribute to decreased poverty and inequalities and increasing resilience to socio-economic short-term and long-term consequences of the protracted crisis in Syria (contribution to SDGs 1, 2, 4, 5, 8, 10 and EU GAP II Targets 12, 14 and 15).

 


Expected results


1) Capacity building of implementing organisation in order to contribute to the advancement of nexus programming utilizing a gender-sensitive approach and develop a model that showcases how vulnerable Households (HH) can transition from relief to recovery and self-reliance.

2) At least 750 IDP and host community HHs (3,750 individuals) with 30% FHH are supported with unconditional multipurpose cash grants (MPGs) in response to the dire socio-economic conditions and addressing the most immediate needs of women, men, girls and boys. Cash grants will be provided with the purpose to meet basic needs or to through emergency cash to mitigate COVID-19 related shocks.

3) 400 women and men have equal opportunities to start and re-start their business addressing issues around relevant knowledge and skills to engage in business activities through relevant training and further provides seed grants as financial support for advancing business ideas.

4) 140 women and men have access to grant and further business support (e.g. mentoring, coaching, peer exchange) specifically geared towards eliminating barriers/ constraints for females engaged in IGA.


Target group / Beneficiaries


The Project is targeting vulnerable IDP, host community and returnee HH and individuals residing in urban and rural areas of the Homs and Hama Governorates, specifically promoting access and opportunities that benefit FHH/and the right of women to equal employment, information on legal rights, and freedom from violence. In total, the project will reach 3,950 individual beneficiaries (1,943 female, 2,012 male) and approximately 850 indirect beneficiaries.


Activities


The following activities are foreseen under the project:

Capacity Building and trainings for local partner; Provision of multipurpose cash grants for basic needs; Provision of unconditional multipurpose cash grants for emergency cash assistance; Develop detailed curricula for business development training models; re-start refresher training for business planning and administration ; start-up training for business planning and Administration; Select and distribute seed grants; provision of mentoring; Provision of psycho-social support; Provision of cash grants to cover cost for business start-up and re-start activities; Development of Business Incubation model and structured, gender-sensitive mentoring Programme; Accompany business owners through customized and structured program of mentoring and peer support to promote/foster functioning business models.


Context


The conflict in Syria is now in its tenth year and considered one of the world‘s most severe humanitarian crises, with 5.6 million refugees, more than 6 million internally displaced people, and over 400,000 people killed. The prolonged conflict and resulting economic collapse have created humanitarian needs that far outweigh available resources, hamper early recovery, and prevent women and men from rebuilding their livelihoods. According to the 2019 Humanitarian Needs Overview (HNO), 11.7 million Syrians are in need of basic assistance and 8.6 million are in vital need of early recovery and livelihood support. Similarly, the WFP estimates that 9.3 million people are in need of food assistance and a further 2.2 million at risk of food insecurity.

Even before the recent economic downturn, more than 500,000 persons relied on humanitarian aid in both Homs and Hama Governorates alone. The alarming depreciation and inflation rates are expected to further augment the inability of households to meet their basic food needs. Unemployment is estimated to have risen to 55% in 2019 while purchasing power has decreased to 1/10th of pre-conflict rates. The majority of the labor force is now working informally (70.2% in Hama and 59.9% in Homs), which results in a lack of wage and social protection and the associated risk of labor exploitation. In addition, large-scale displacement, destruction of assets, and collapse of economic life has erected significant barriers that prevent households from embarking on pathways to recovery. Strikingly, one-third of Syria’s population now lives in female headed households. This means that, in addition to on-going household duties and care responsibilities, many women now face the additional burden of having to secure an income while continuing to face barriers relating to cultural norms, laws, and discrimination.

 

project number 2857-04/2020
source of funding OEZA
sector Humanitäre Hilfe: Maßnahmen zum Wiederaufbau und Rehabilitierung nach Katastrophen
tied 0
modality Project-type interventions
marker Gender: 1, Poverty: 1
  • Policy marker: are used to identify, assess and facilitate the monitoring of activities in support of policy objectives concerning gender equality, aid to environment, participatory development/good governance, trade development and reproductive, maternal, newborn and child health. Activities targeting the objectives of the Rio Conventions include the identification of biodiversity, climate change mitigation, climate change adaptation, and desertification.
    • 1= policy is a significant objective of the activity
    • 2= policy is the principal objective of the activity
  • Donor/ source of funding: The ADA is not only implementing projects and programmes of the Austrian Development Cooperation , but also projects funded from other sources and donors such as
    • AKF - Foreign Disaster Fund of the Austrian federal government
    • BMLFUW - Federal Ministry for Agriculture, Forestry, Environment and Water
    • EU - Funds of the European Commission
    • Others - various other donors are listed in ADA’s annual business report.
  • Type of Aid – Aid modalities: classifies transfers from the donor to the first recipient of funds such as budget support, core contributions and pooled programmes and funds to CSOs and multilateral organisations, project-type interventions, experts and other technical assistance, scholarships and student costs in donor countries, debt relief, administrative costs and other in-donor expenditures.
  • Purpose/ sector code: classifies the specific area of the recipient’s economic or social structure, funded by a bilateral contribution.
  • Tied/Untied: Untied aid is defined as loans and grants whose proceeds are fully and freely available to finance procurement from all OECD countries and substantially all developing countries. Transactions are considered tied unless the donor has, at the time of the aid offer, clearly specified a range of countries eligible for procurement which meets the tests for “untied” aid.