hera and GOPA (previously EPOS), as part of the PROMAN consortium, are the implementing partners of the Third-Party Monitoring of the Lebanon Health Programme for Syrian Refugees and Vulnerable Lebanese Population funded by the EU through the MADAD fund.
The project was awarded in 2019 will continue till 2022. hera consultant Michèle Kosremelli Asmar is based in Lebanon and is part of the monitoring team along with a team leader and a second expert recruited by GOPA.
Lebanon has received more international refugees per capita than any other country in the world. Most of the refugees fled the Syrian crisis that began in 2011. Lebanon’s pre-crisis population has been estimated at 4.2 million. The number of registered Syrian refugees exceeds 1.5 million in the last five years. In addition, Lebanon hosts hundreds of thousands of non-registered refugees from Syria, of whom many stay in informal settlements. Furthermore, close to half a million Palestinian refugees reside in Lebanon, some 50% of whom still live in Lebanon’s 12 designated Palestinian refugee camps.
The objective of the project is to continue to support access to quality, equitable and affordable health services (service provisions and drugs) for vulnerable populations in Lebanon while increasing the capacities of the health care system in progressing towards the achievement of Universal Health Care. Several entities (United Nations Children's Fund (UNICEF), World Health Organisation (WHO), International Medical Corps (IMC), Lebanese Red Cross (LRC)) are involved in the overall project and contribute to the achievement of the overall goal.
The evaluation has been on track now for one year. Two continuous monitoring surveys have been done and there are still two to go, one in February 2021 and again in August 2021. In parallel, evaluation for four projects have been completed and cleared by the partners and EU delegation. The project continues to be an evolving challenge since the October 2019 uprise in Lebanon, followed shortly after with the explosion in Beirut on August 4th.