Cash payments to thousands of vulnerable Syrian families

From IRIN, a story about a new cash payment program in Syria.

Syria's decision to make cash payments to thousands of vulnerable families and reduce some taxes could help stem food insecurity and rising poverty, but many still do not have enough to eat, say experts.

Payments have begun to be made from a new fund designed to help 420,000 vulnerable families. The National Social Aid Fund has been in the pipeline for several years, was set up in January and made its first payments on 13 February.

Two days later, the government reduced duties on a range of basic foodstuffs including rice, tea, powdered milk, coffee and bananas. It also lowered taxes on vegetable oil, margarine, unroasted coffee and sugar.

Shortly after the ouster of Tunisian President Zine El Abidine Ben Ali on 14 January, the government also announced a 72 percent rise in heating fuel subsidies for public sector employees.

"Traditionally the Middle East and North Africa has been relatively food secure,” said Arne Oshaug, a nutrition and food security expert at Akershus University College in Norway. “But many countries now produce less and rely on imports which are subject to price fluctuations.”

This is beginning to affect more affluent people too. An index of food vulnerability by Nomura, a Japanese investment house, found that on average 47.9 percent of household income is spent on food in Syria.

"When people spend so much of their income on food, a slight variation in the price can upset their ability to eat enough to avoid hunger,” said Oshaug.

Syria is faced with decreasing oil reserves and a growing population, limiting its options. Food prices have been rising and at the same time some subsidies, such as on fuel, have decreased.

"It's very hard to survive,” said one herder on the outskirts of Damascus. “We can barely afford the basics of tea, bread and sugar.”

Poverty, drought

In 2005, a UN report found that 30 percent of Syrians lived below the poverty line, and of these, 11.4 percent below the subsistence level.

The situation has since deteriorated, in part due to several years of drought. In a 27 January report, UN Rapporteur on the Right to Food Oliver de Schutter estimated the number of people who may be food insecure at 3.7 million.

"Since 2006, the country has endured four consecutive droughts," Schutter noted. "The drought of 2007-08 was particularly devastating, placing additional burdens on the country.

Although rainfall in 2009 and 2010 has been greater than in the three previous years, it was poorly distributed. While the impact on pasture land was positive, crops failed in the rain-fed areas of the most vulnerable agro-climatic zones."

In the northeastern region, he added, drought had resulted in significant losses particularly in the governorates of Al Hasakah, Dayr Az Zawr and Al Raqqah.

In January, the World Food Programme (WFP) and government emergency drought response was extended until May after the UN found food insecurity was an enduring problem.

"There is a situation of food insecurity in the drought-affected areas,” said Selly Muzammil, World Food Programme (WFP) spokesman in Syria. “Our latest assessment shows 25 percent of the rural population in the five surveyed governorates are experiencing food insecurity.”

The situation has been further aggravated by the yellow rust crop disease and adverse weather, which have reduced agricultural output, causing Syria to turn to imports. According to Agriculture Ministry figures, wheat, barley and cotton yields fell last year by 17, 20 and 28 percent respectively.

Safety nets

Experts said the situation could lead to chronic food insecurity and also hit the economy. "Malnutrition and learning impairment are just two possible consequences,” said Oshaug, adding: “Research has shown that food insecurity is directly linked to a reduction in a country's GDP.”

Last week the International Monetary Fund (IMF) warned that countries in the Middle East need to focus on inclusive growth and targeted help for the poor.

In an interview with IMF Survey magazine, Masood Ahmed, director of the IMF's Middle East and Central Asia department, said the authorities in the region had announced expenditure increases of up to 3 percent of GDP since the recent unrest began in Tunisia.

But he warned that efforts must be sustainable."To address the fiscal constraint without necessarily reducing other important expenditures, it is important to improve and modernize existing safety nets,” he said.

More funding, better targeting

Humanitarian agencies said more money was needed to tackle food security in Syria. WFP’s emergency funding appeal for the country fell short of its target.

A lack of funds last year meant it could only distribute food to 215,000 of the 300,000 beneficiaries targeted. Some 2,000 children were being given food supplements to prevent stunting.

Experts said it may also be necessary to target interventions in a better way. "We need to rethink development support in general,” said Oshaug. “There needs to be a greater focus on people's needs rather than what politicians are willing to do.”

Another area Syria needs to tackle is unemployment. Officially at 11-12 percent, independent economic analysts say it is running at 20 percent. The number of new job openings is believed not to be keeping pace with rising demand.

New warnings of drought in Syria

From IRIN, a story about the United Nations issuing a new warning on a drought in Syria.

A top UN official warns that Syria's drought is affecting food security and has pushed 2-3 million people into “extreme poverty”.

During a mission to Syria which ended on 7 September, Olivier de Schutter, UN special rapporteur on the right to food, said 1.3 million people had been affected by the four-year drought, 800,000 of whom had had their livelihoods devastated.

“The situation is really bad,” said Selly Muzammil, spokesperson for the World Food Programme (WFP) in Syria.

In June the Food and Agriculture Organization (FAO) in Syria said the drought had ended but that inconsistent rainfall was causing crop failures. Other UN agencies say the drought is ongoing.

Schutter said four consecutive droughts had affected Syria since 2006, with the drought in 2007-2008 being particularly devastating. "The losses from these repeated droughts have been significant for the population in the northeastern part of the country, particularly in Al-Hasakeh, Deir Ezzor and Al-Raqqa.”

Small-scale farmers have been worst affected. Many farmers have not been able to cultivate enough food or earn enough money to feed their families. Herders have also lost 80-85 percent of their livestock since 2005, according to UN figures.

Thousands have left northeastern areas and live in informal settlements or camps close to Damascus. Experts warn, off the record, that the true figure of those living in “extreme poverty” could be higher than the 2-3 million estimate.

Wheat

The drought is also threatening food security. Whilst the government says it is self-sufficient in wheat - the primary strategic crop in Syria - production has not matched demand.

This year’s yield was 3.3 million tons, compared to demand for 3.8 million tons, according to government figures. Wheat has been imported.

“Syria has enough to stocks for the shortage at the moment. The problem is that poor families have had several years of bad crops so their resilience capacity is low. Many families now don't have access to credit, for example,” said Mario Zappacosta, an economist from FAO's trade and markets division.

The biggest challenge Syria is facing is altered weather conditions such as inconsistent rainfall, according to officials at the Ministry of Agriculture. Adversely affecting farmers, it is not clear whether the changes are natural fluctuations in the climate or permanent changes due to global warming.

Water sources have also been permanently affected. Farmers used wells to draw on groundwater resources because of a lack of rainfall. The situation is exacerbated by the inefficient use of water. Schutter said the dropping of groundwater tables was a “serious concern”.

The Syrian government and the UN have been handing out food to those affected and working to implement more efficient agricultural policies. Central planning is gradually being replaced by indicative planning with an agricultural support fund providing subsidies for certain strategic crops.

Earlier this month an irrigation project was launched in the lower Euphrates basin, near Deir Ezzor to reduce water drawn from groundwater reserves.

But Schutter warned that the Syrian drought appeal was not receiving enough money as aid had been politicized. Only 34 percent of the total funds requested had been received, according to the UN. One of the effects of this has been to limit WFP food parcels to 200,000 of the 300,000 people it had hoped to target during distribution in June.

Drought threatens Syrian wheat crops

A water shortage in Syria is sending many farmers into the slums around Damascus looking for other work. The drought is partially caused by a lack of upgrades to irrigation from the country's government and also by a lack of rainfall. The shortages in enough water to irrigate crops is turning Syria from a wheat exporter into a importer.

From Bloomberg Business Week, writer Daniel Williams talks about the causes of the water shortage.

Much of Syria’s farmland is irrigated by flooding, which wastes water, instead of through pipes and tubes, Yazigi said. “Modernization of agriculture has been neglected.”

Rainfall has averaged between 45 percent and 66 percent less than normal in three eastern provinces during the past two years, according to a February UN report. The country uses more water than it receives from rivers, and wells dug to make up the shortfall are depleting aquifers, Theib Oweis, a senior researcher at the Aleppo-based International Center for Agricultural Research in the Dry Areas, said in a telephone interview.

Syria’s economy grew about 4 percent last year, a decline of 1 percentage point from 2008, the International Monetary Fund said in a Dec. 21 report. The harvest of wheat, Syria’s biggest crop, fell to about 2 million metric tons, half the usual amount, according to the U.S. Department of Agriculture.

“For the first time in two decades, Syria has moved from being a net exporter of wheat to a net importer,” said a February 2010 report by the U.S. State Department, which added that agriculture accounted for about 17 percent of 2008 GDP. The country buys wheat mainly from Mediterranean and Black Sea countries, including France, Ukraine and Russia, according to Syria’s official government news agency.

Rain and snow this winter have raised hope for a revived harvest, although one isn’t assured, Abdulla Bin Yehia, a UN Food and Agriculture Organization representative in Damascus, said in the Feb. 17 UN report.

“If there is no more rain in the drought-affected areas within the next six to seven weeks, then we may not have any crop,” he said. Frost could destroy produce and devastate farmers “for another year,” he added.

Iraqi refugees and their search for work

Iraqi refugees who flee to Syria are not allowed to work in the country legally. This leaves the refugees having to work illegally for what are often less wages than normal. Children often have to find work because their parents struggle and often find themselves in harsher conditions.

From IRIN, we read more about the struggle that Iraqi refugees have to earn a living.

Aseel Ali*, aged 16, and her mother - both refugees from Iraq - earn just enough (US$174 per month between them) in a Damascus handicraft workshop to pay their rent and buy food.

“I have to help my mother as our savings ran out,” Aseel told IRIN. “We start early in the morning and finish at 4pm, and also take work home,” she said.

Aseel’s family fled to Egypt in 2006. In 2007 her father went back to Iraq for a short visit but has since gone missing.

After their savings dried up, the family returned to Iraq in January 2009 on one of the free government-organized flights designed to stimulate returns, but the family received fresh death threats and Aseel’s 12-year-old brother was kidnapped and tortured. Once he was released, his mother decided they should flee again - this time to Syria.

Aseel has not been to school since she left Iraq in 2006. In Egypt, private schools were beyond the family’s means and when they arrived in Syria, where Iraqi refugees have free access to education in public schools, she could not attend school as she needed to earn money for the family to survive.

According to a November 2007 survey by the IPSOS market research agency, 37 percent of Iraqi refugees interviewed said their main source of income was their savings; 24 percent relied on remittances; and 24 percent on wages; 33 percent expected their money to last less than three months; 53 percent did not know how long their money would last.

Lack of data on child labour

There are no up-to-date statistics on child labour among the refugee population, but officials and the refugees themselves think the number is on the rise. Not allowed to work legally, Iraqis receive very low wages and find it difficult to make ends meet, officials say.

A young Iraqi woman IRIN met at the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR) Douma registration centre who preferred anonymity said many Iraqi children where she was living were not going to school. “They work in different jobs to support their helpless families,” she said.

The IPSOS survey estimated that about 10 percent of school-age Iraqi children in Syria are working.

The Syrian government has also recognized that child labour is becoming a widespread phenomenon among Iraqi refugees, the UN Children’s Fund (UNICEF) said in its child protection strategy 2008-2009, quoting a paper presented by the Syrian government to an international conference on Iraqi refugees in Geneva in 2007.

School dropouts

"Families have spent their savings and are becoming increasingly destitute. There are indications that more children are dropping out of school and entering the labour market to help support their families. Early marriages for girls are also on the rise as a result of economic hardship," UNHCR public information officer Farah Dakhlallah told IRIN.

"According to government statistics, there were fewer Iraqi children registered in the 2008-2009 school year than in the previous year. We believe this is primarily linked to economic duress, as well as resettlement and returns," Dakhlallah said.

The Ministry of Education said there were 32,425 Iraqi students officially enrolled in the 2008-09 school year compared to 49,132 in 2007-08.

New study

In collaboration with the Ministry of Social Affairs and the International Labour Organization (ILO), UNICEF has launched a national study on the worst forms of child labour in Syria, UNICEF child protection specialist Theodora Tsovili told IRIN. “The study will take three months and will include Syrian, Palestinian and Iraqi children,” she said.

“Only with this study will we get updated information about this phenomenon. We have estimates that school dropouts are linked to child labour, but we don’t have proof. We need this study to back up any future response,” she said.

(* not her real name)

Poverty forces mother to choose among kids

from The Houston Chronicle

One of 6 will go to school so family can stay in Syria

By HANNAH ALLAM
McClatchy-Tribune

DAMASCUS, SYRIA — The Zuhairy family lives in a freezing one-room apartment in Jaramana, a growing Iraqi refugee enclave in Damascus. There's no bathroom door, no hot water, no furniture, no heat and no privacy.

Seven people sleep and eat in the same room, where a battered television set provides the only entertainment.

The mother, who goes by the nickname Umm Sundus, has fought to keep her family fed since her husband, a goldsmith, was killed in Iraq last year and the rest of the family fled here.

Rent is $150 a month, but the family's main income is $100 a month, wired from a relative in Australia, and Umm Sundus is always behind on bills. There's no way of educating so many children: Adam, 4; Bahram, 10; Ram, 14; Ranya, 17; Samir, 20; and Suzanne, 22.

In Syria, residency permits are issued to Iraqis who enroll at least one of their children in school. Umm Sundus couldn't afford to send them all, so she faced a heartbreaking choice: Which child would be the one to go?

She picked Bahram, a slender boy with deep brown eyes.

"He's young, so no matter what we dress him in, whether it's old or it has rips, he doesn't understand and won't feel embarrassed," Umm Sundus explained. "For the others, I made it clear from the beginning that they couldn't go to school. I had no choice."

For the most part, she said, the other children are resigned to their situation. Sometimes, however, fights break out among the children because Bahram wants to get to bed early, while the others have no studies and like to stay up all night watching television.

Apart from the two oldest children, who attended university in Iraq, all the Zuhairy siblings have problems with reading and writing.

"I studied all those years only to forget it all," said Ranya, who'd hoped to follow in her big sister's footsteps by attending college. "I wish I could talk to my family about it, but I know the reasons I can't go. It'll only make them feel worse if I bring it up."