Lebanon: Preparing for and responding to emergency crises with efficient and accountable referral pathways

This report focuses on the gaps and challenges in referral pathways and inter-sector coordination specifically in Beirut after the 4 August 2020 Blast, and presents recommendations to improve access to multi-sector services of vulnerable communities. The paper looks towards the upcoming winter storms, which occur every year in Lebanon and are likely to see even higher needs this year with the new 2020 context, and advocate to focus on efficient referrals as a preparedness measure in order to effectively address the holistic needs of vulnerable communities likely to be affected by the storms.

The report concludes with the following recommendations:

• Sector coordinators in sites usually affected by winter storms to pay specific attention to referrals by assigning focal points for each sector responsible for receiving referrals and ensuring good knowledge of services across actors operating specifically in these areas.

• Partners to take the opportunity of the moments where field operations are possible to actively communicate with communities on services, notably through the dissemination of the hotline, which has proved quite important in enabling access to services.

• Inter-Agency Coordination to mainstream complaints and feedback mechanisms beyond organizational level, to sector and/or inter-agency level to ensure similar data collection, feedback channels.

• Partners to rely on community focal points to continue identifying and following up on people while working remotely.