Background
Non-Food Items (NFIs) support remains a primary need for the crisis-affected population, with the estimation of 5.3 million people in need of this kind of support. Syrians remain the primary providers of emergency shelter for IDPs. Adequate shelter stock remains insufficient. Evictions, insecure tenure and repeated displacements remain a chronic problem. Access to and availability of NFIs remain limited. A number of drivers, including the crisis, economic and financial measures imposed on Syria, economic decline and reduced availability of basic services have all contributed to the exacerbation of the humanitarian situation over the past year. Given the dynamics of the conflict in Syria, the movement of relief actors and access to those in need continue to be a ma-jor impediment to providing assistance. Proliferation of checkpoints, active frontlines, tactics of besiegement and insecurity prevent the delivery of assistance. Movement restrictions are more severe in urban areas and in areas experiencing frequent and high intensity conflict.
Since 2012, the NFI Sector member agencies have been responding to the needs of IDPs and conflict-affected persons. The sector has focused its efforts on hard-to-reach and underserved ar-eas, and some successes have been noted such as the use of airlifts and new land routes for access to certain areas. These practices and lessons are being applied further in the response for 2016.
Response
• Respond to sudden emergencies, as well as provide more sustainable solutions by focus-ing on saving and sustaining lives through providing NFI/Shelter kits, construction materi-als/tools, emergency shelters...etc. the sector will also look at addressing seasonal needs such as NFI winter kits.
• Support resilience by promoting the cohesion and recovery of the communities. This will be done through the rehabilitation of family housing and repair of infrastructure.
• Linkage with other sectors: the sector recognizes the centrality of protection in all program-ming and it is therefore committed to mainstream protection. In addition, sector activities are inherently linked with other sectors. The sector will particularly focus on proactive engagement with the following sectors: (1) Protection, (2) CCCM, (3) WASH (4) livelihood and Early Recovery (5) Education.
• Ensure adequate and affective contingency planning, to respond to the sudden-onset cycli-cal displacements. This includes maintaining stocks in key locations to address acute and chronic needs and enable a tailored flexible response.
• Formulate the Strategic Objectives: Support life sustainability of IDPs through NFI response on both levels: emergency level based on set contingency plan, mainly through NFI distri-bution, and sustainable level through cash-based interventions to support the resilience and early recovery of affected communities.
• Further emphasize coordination efforts, through creation and maintenance of efficient coordination mechanism at all levels, e.g. within the sector, inter-sectors and inter-agen-cy, in addition to continued interaction with other relevant parties such as governmental counterparts, SARC and ICRC. Coordination is also strengthened at the sub-national level by establishing local SWG, and extending to the regional coverage through WoS approach.
• Build capacity of actors responding to the humanitarian crisis in Syria, including NGOs, lo-cal NGOs, and other stakeholders.
Gaps & Challenges
• Access to population in need (especially besieged and hard to reach areas)
• Timely delivery constrained related to/ mainly derived from: approval process, funding and / or planning.
• Ensuring consistently coordinated, harmonized and as appropriate as possible assistance.
• Reliable information and credible assessments.
• Clear monitoring approach and reports.
• Complexity of and delays resulting from formal and administrative procedures for provi-sion of NFIs assistance.
• Lack of data (and/or access to/sharing of data on needs).
• Lack of beneficiaries' data base being made available to actors (leading to inability to properly monitor/ verify assistance delivery)
• Capacity (training needs, skills, knowledge) of local partners for distribution, assessment, application of "do no harm", protection mainstreaming, monitoring