Better planning and funding can help Lebanon cope with its Syrian refugee problem

Beirut feels that there is a way to manage the country’s 1.5 million new Syrian guests but that this will require support, as the World Bank says it will cost $1.5bn just to meet their basic needs

Syrian children, on a hill above a refugee camp in Bekaa Governorate, Lebanon.

Better planning and funding can help Lebanon cope with its Syrian refugee problem

Salwa Baalbaki

last update on 11 Jul 2024

Syria’s civil war that raged for years since 2011 led millions to flee the fighting. While many sought out Europe via Turkey, neighbouring Lebanon—a tiny country of only five million—faced a deluge. That has now grown into a demographic dilemma. Initially, Syrians entered Lebanon through legal border crossings, but after the Lebanese government stopped registering new refugees, it expanded into illegal crossings and the use of smuggling routes.

The World Bank’s updated report Lebanon: Economic and Social Impact Assessment of the Syrian Conflict provides a picture of the current reality up to June 2024. Syrian labour is not necessarily a bad thing. Historically, Syrians have been the backbone of Lebanon’s agriculture and construction industries. But this tended to be seasonal work, and Lebanon was already home to 500,000 Palestinian refugees, homeless since 1948.

Lebanon now hosts “the highest concentration of refugees in the world relative to its population,” according to the World Bank. With economic conditions in the country dire, there is now a risk that tensions between hosts (Lebanese) and guests (Syrians) could boil over.

Diana Estefanía Rubio

Profuse and costly

With the spread and prevalence of Syrian refugees across almost every Lebanese town, some sectors of government and society have used this to stoke fears that this presence will shrink Lebanon's job market and drain its limited resources.

But herein lies the quandary. The Lebanese economy cannot survive without a young Syrian labour force, but an economy programmed for just a few million Lebanese and suffering from major structural problems also struggles to accommodate so many Syrians. It is also being asked to accommodate the needs of the Syrian economy. Ravaged by war, sanctions, and corruption, Damascus needs Lebanon to secure imports.

Today, there are an estimated 1.5 million Syrian refugees in Lebanon, with no immediate prospect of being able to return home. Meanwhile, the Lebanese increasingly see Syrians as worsening their own economic prospects. Initial sympathy for Syrians' plight has now grown into serious concern about Lebanon's—especially with the return of the balance of payments gap. The burden to sustain these refugees falls on Lebanon—averaging around $1.5bn per year.

International support

The European Union recently offered Lebanon €1bn "in support for vital sectors", but some Lebanese saw this as a "bribe" for them to stop demanding the return of refugees to their country of origin and to stop the flow of migrants to Europe from Lebanon.

AFP — Caretaker Prime Minister Najib Mikati (centre) welcomes Cypriot President NikosChristodoulides (left) and Ursula von der Leyen, President of the European Commission, at the Government Palace in Beirut, May 2, 2024.

Al Majalla got an early glimpse of the latest World Bank report, before being officially released. It includes a paper from Samir Daher, economic adviser to Prime Minister Najib Mikati, which was presented to ministers in Brussels.

According to the UN High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR), Lebanon has 1.5 million registered and unregistered refugees. However, most do not live in official refugee camps, reflecting a policy that aims to learn from the Palestinian experience.

There is roughly one Syrian refugee for every four Lebanese, with the visitors scattered across the country—particularly on the peripheries of urban centres in the north and east. The largest concentration of registered Syrian refugees (around 24%) is in the agricultural Bekaa valley, followed by Mt Lebanon (21%), Northern Lebanon (15%), Southern Lebanon (7.3%), Nabatiyeh (3.8%), and Beirut (1.5%).

In all areas, host communities are generally in bigger cities – more than 90% – making the challenge of meeting refugees' needs predominantly an urban challenge.

Lebanon hosts the highest concentration of refugees in the world relative to its population.

The World Bank

World Bank report

Although not a signatory to the 1951 UN Refugee Convention, Lebanon is fulfilling its humanitarian and ethical responsibilities as a transit country, argues Daher. Yet now that the fighting has stopped in Syria, it is crunch time for the visitors.

The report argues that it is essential to distinguish between two categories of Syrians in Lebanon: those who fled for safety and those who left seeking better livelihoods. The vast majority fall into the latter category and should be returned home if it is safe to do so. For those whose stay is necessary for safety reasons, arrangements can be made for onward travel to another (safe) third country, where the Syrians can settle.

The World Bank is aware of the impact of the Syrian war on Lebanon's macroeconomy and its gross domestic product (GDP), causing a 2-3% drop in the annual growth rate from 2011-17, equivalent to about $31bn. The most severe impact on growth was during the first two years of the conflict, which had a colossal effect on security, consumption, investment, governance, and trade. From 2011-17, investments went down by a fifth, while imports and exports went down by 35% and 45% respectively.

Although Jordan, Iraq, and Turkey were all affected by Syria's civil war, Lebanon bore the brunt of the impact in terms of the mass movement of people. It was ill-equipped, however, with "vulnerabilities in the macroeconomy and institutional fragility", according to the World Bank.

According to the World Bank report, the annual costs of hosting Syrian refugees in Lebanon are about $1.55bn, which includes only the cost of responding to direct needs such as food, shelter, and minimal public services. Some costs are met by international humanitarian organisations, including charities, while others are met by the government. A lack of data means the impact on investment, consumption, infrastructure, and tax revenue is not fully understood.

While Syrian refugees contribute to microeconomic activity at a local level, their impact on a macroeconomic level is less clear. Refugees and host communities alike have been affected by the inability of public services provided by local government agencies to adequately respond to the changed economics and demographics.

Reuters — Refugees in an "unofficial" camp in the Bekaa, 2021

Systematising refuge

Looking ahead, if large numbers of Syrian refugees are in Lebanon to stay, the country must transition from a state of administering a humanitarian emergency to one of managing long-term risk. According to the World Bank, this requires "strong government leadership and the use of the country's systems to deliver assistance, along with effective burden-sharing between the international community and Lebanon using facilitated and predictable tools".

Mitigating the impact of hosting Syrian refugees on local Lebanese communities can be achieved by implementing effective social protection programmes, which is particularly important given the economic crisis. Cooperation with external partners is key to ensuring the right assistance is given to refugees and host communities.

Since 2019, the Lebanese pound has collapsed, people's bank deposits have disappeared, and families' purchasing power has plummeted. Thus, the fight for scarce jobs has intensified, exacerbating the tension between Lebanese and Syrians. In 2023, twice as many Lebanese were employed in agriculture as in 2018. In other service areas, the employment rate has tripled.

Government measures

According to Daher, the Lebanese authorities can manage the issue of Syrian refugees within its national borders if it has the assistance and support of the international community for their plans. These include the surveying and registration of all Syrians living in Lebanon, revoking the "refugee" status granted by the UNHCR to those on its lists who came from Syria, and deporting Syrians convicted of crimes.

Other measures include subjecting all Syrians not on UNHCR lists to residency, labour, and commercial practices laws in Lebanon and consolidating the scattered and unorganised camps into fewer but bigger organised centres established on state lands.

Finally, Daher has argued for the formulation of Lebanese policy to reduce the number of Syrian migrants in Lebanon and ensure their return to Syria instead of seeking an increase in financial aid, which does not cover the full cost.

+ / -