A woman looks at her empty fridge in Tripoli. (Credit: Ibrahim Chalhoub/AFP)
BEIRUT— After two months, open registration for social assistance programs closed at midnight Monday. Over 582,000 application forms were submitted according to data tracked by the government’s IMPACT platform.
Here’s what we know:
• The registration platform for the World Bank-funded Emergency Social Safety Net and the government's ration card program was launched at the beginning of December some two-and-a-half months after it was initially due to launch.
• The total number of people who registered is 1,472,411, amounting to 20 percent of the population in Lebanon. Out of the total number of applications, however, 154,186 forms were marked incomplete.
• Previously, applicants reported difficulties registering for the assistance programs, including not being in possession of an ID card, and this was evident in the final data reported by IMPACT, which showed 280,799 individuals without ID cards.
• The majority of people applying for the ration card program live in Baabda, Akkar, Baalbeck, Zahle, Saida, Sur and Beirut, in that order.
• The applications submitted show that around 59 percent of registered people are currently unemployed. The employed people who registered work in the private sector, public sector, NGOs and political parties, in that order.
• Around 92 percent of applicants don’t have a bank account and only 5 percent receive financial help in the form of funds from people living abroad.
• The high number of applicants represents the worsening living situation in Lebanon, wherein 82 percent of the population has fallen below the multidimensional poverty line, according to UNESCWA.
• Social Affairs Minister Hector Hajjar told a local radio station on Tuesday that “Lebanon is in a transitional and pre-negotiation phase with the International Monetary Fund,” adding that DAEM social support payments will start “on March 1 and [will be] in US dollars.”
• On Monday, Hajjar said that as it was drafted, Article 15 of the proposed budget, which deals with social care, caused confusion, “so we reformulated it today,” adding that the cabinet decided Monday to increase its spending on social care programs to LL400 billion.
• Hajjar promised more details on the social support programs yesterday, saying that “in the coming days we will explain all aspects of this issue in detail in a press conference.”