Providing improved access to essential goods and services for highly vulnerable populations in hard to reach areas Aarsal III The project “Providing improved access to essential goods and services for highly vulnerable populations in hard to reach areas III” aims at continuing mitigating the existent constraints surrounding access to both food and non-food items/services, and the subsequent negative mechanisms utilised by individuals and families to manage these access constraints. This project will do so by maintaining the provision of direct, Multipurpose Cash transfers allowing people to satisfy their basic needs in Aarsal area, where no other Cash method can effectively reach the underprivileged population. This intervention will continue targeting the most severely economically vulnerable Syrian Refugees and extremely poor Lebanese households living in hard to reach areas, where assistance coverage is extremely reduced. The cash support serves as a boost to the purchasing power of people in need, facilitating their access to goods available in the markets, those which are not directly accessible for the target populations through the existing cash transfer modalities. This project will also serve as a boost to the local market economies, particularly local vendors that will benefit from direct cash injection in their businesses.

In order to increase transparency, accountability, dignity, speed, security, and monitor impact of aid response, ACF will use the KACHE System (Kit for Autonomous Cash transfer in Humanitarian Emergencies) made of: a) a small number of “terminals” to be deployed at selected vendors offering goods in the intervention areas (shops, market stalls, fuel stations, etc.), working on large-duration batteries and not requiring connection to a telecommunication network b) a large number of smart cards to be easily configured at the beginning of the response with beneficiaries personal data and amount of cash to be monthly transferred, and c) a comprehensive monitoring software allowing to track the locations and goods purchased by the beneficiaries. With the use of this modality of e-payments ACF will be able to reach Aarsal as remote area, usually under-served (due to restricted access to agencies and no banks/ATM present in the area) and will allow for closer monitoring of activities and programme impact.

This proposal is a follow up and continuation of an OCHA-funded project, which ends on 26 May 2017. The continuation of the project activities to another 3 months is deemed necessary for allowing the beneficiaries to allow households who struggle to access goods critical to their basic well-being and mitigate growing vulnerabilities among both Syrian and Lebanese in Aarsal.
The proposal consists of 2 disbursements of USD175 on a monthly basis for 653 beneficiary HHs (including Syrians and Lebanese) from 1 May to 31 July 2017. The disbursements will be followed by a tight monitoring of beneficiaries and vendors using both the Kache platform and household/vendors visits. This program will allow to reinforce and improve the on-going capitalisation document considering best practices, lessons learned, and recommendations for future programming. These results will be shared  with Basic Assistance Working Group members and other stakeholders for an impact assessment of assistance modality.

Due to the particularities of Aarsal area, with high concentration of severely vulnerable households (85%) in an isolated area, and the lack of alternatives cash methodologies, ACF will also use this period to advocate for the continuation of the programme in front of other donors for the remaining months of 2017.