Social Stabilization through Comprehensive Agricultural Support for Refugee Host Communities in Lebanon

About

The massive influx of refugees facilitates the creation of social tensions between refugees and host communities. The agricultural sector, due to its contribution to the local economy, may contribute to alleviate social tensions but it's facing problem due to the scarcity of water in Lebanon. For this reason, the project aims at improving agricultural livelihoods for men and women through the rehabilitation of irrigation canals and technical support at the farm-level.

Impact

Goals

The goal of the project is to restore social stabilization in local and vulnerable host communities through the development of the agricultural sector. Increasing in agricultural productivity will improve the local economy enhancing the cooperation and alleviating social tensions between different communities.

Objectives

The overarching objective of this project is to maintain social stability and strengthen human security by urgently improving agriculture livelihoods in a comprehensive manner. The proposed approach consists of the upgrading of on-farm irrigation and agricultural practices with supporting capacity development.

Impact pathways

The project aims and research activities are particularly oriented to convert traditional flood and other inefficient irrigation practices to more water-efficient irrigation systems, introduce farmers to drought-tolerant and disease-resistant new crops and varieties, seed production and distribution and improved cultivation practices. Improved irrigation systems, which have been developed and tested in partnership with national partners in over 40 countries and have proven their potential in the fields of thousands of smallholder farmers by ICARDA in areas with similar climate and environmental stressors will be provided. This will be facilitated by the previous experiences of ICARDA in this area and the important partnership with other Lebanese research institutes. They will provide training on the use and maintenance of the equipment to all participating farmers and NARS and will facilitate the diffusion of the new developed system and technologies. Therefore, it will be through training and demonstrations of efficiency that the proposed new systems will be disseminated and used within the local community, improving the agricultural livelihoods and water resources management restoring social stabilization within the community.