Improving access to nutritious and diverse fresh foods for vulnerable populations in Beirut and Mount Lebanon This proposal outlines an innovative strategy for meeting the urgent, life-saving needs of crisis affected populations in highly vulnerable urban areas of Greater Beirut (Dahiyeh and Lower Metn), while improving the resilience of communities and filling a gap in food aid provision due to the protracted nature of the crisis, and reduced funding allocations for food assistance. This project is intended to serve as a pilot for solutions aimed at contributing to improved resilience of urban communities in Lebanon facing increasing densification due to the Syrian crisis, adding pressures on existing resources and decreasing social cohesion. 

Specifically, the proposed project follows a two-fold approach to home-based food production in urban contexts. The first focuses on setting up of vertical gardens targeting individual vulnerable households. The second output focuses on the design and establishment of community gardens to contribute to improved social cohesion and reduce tensions in the community, while at the same time improving access to diverse, local and nutritious food for vulnerable members of the community. In addition, the project design attempts to mitigate impacts on overstretched natural resources by facilitating the set-up of rainwater harvesting mechanisms for some of the aforementioned food production. This project will also provide all stakeholders including local Government, donors, INGOs, local organizations and communities an opportunity to learn and strategize about interventions aimed at improving the resilience of urban food systems and address the critical need of sufficient access to nutritious food. This project will undertake research into existing household nutrition practices, regular expenditure on food, including fruit and vegetables to understand the extent of food and micro-nutrient deficiency. 

The project will endeavour to demonstrate opportunities for local food production in small urban spaces using waste material. By using organic wastes such as rotten fruit from vegetable markets, cardboard and soil project beneficiaries will learn how to create highly fertile “living soils” that are vital for healthy production of vegetables, herbs and fruits. The project aims to show the better overall value for money of investing in people’s capacity to generate a significant portion of their daily household food expenditures as compared to dependence of food aid or resorting to negative coping mechanisms to survive. By investing in pilots at household level (on rooftops, balconies, etc.) and community spaces the project will generate evidence on the comparative strengths and weaknesses of each approach. 

In the context of the Syrian crisis which is leading to rapid densification, and increased social tensions in already vulnerable urban communities in Lebanon, this proposal aims to introduce innovative local food systems that could fill critical gaps in food aid delivery, understand the viability of different systems in the given context, and provide information to the stakeholders that will enable the replication of the best models, and help build economies of scale. Critically, this project will target both poor Lebanese and refugee families for the community gardening component to build mutual trust and community cohesion.