Republic of Türkiye Annual Country Report 2023 - Country Strategic Plan 2023 - 2025

ReliefWeb: Updates by Country 03.04.2024 03:34 Countries: Syrian Arab Republic, Türkiye Source: World Food Programme Please refer to the attached file. Overview The global economic downturn and inflation, the spillover effects of the Ukraine conflict, and the two massive earthquakes in the southeast near the Syrian border made 2023 a challenging year for Türkiye. The two strong earthquakes, registered as the worst earthquake disaster in the country’s history, hit southeastern Türkiye on 6 February 2023 claiming more than 50,000 lives and leaving 3.3 million people homeless . The soaring cost of living in 2023, worsened by the earthquakes' socio-economic impacts, had a detrimental effect on all communities, with the most significant impact on disadvantaged households who encountered increased protection risks, compounded by limited employment prospects and escalating poverty levels. The rise in food prices and the consequent decline in purchasing power hampered efforts to achieve zero hunger. A decade after the conflict in Syria erupted, Türkiye continues to be home to the world’s largest refugee population of around 3.7 million people . Out of them, 3.4 million are Syrian, mostly women and children. Syrian refugees have the right to work in Türkiye, but they face many obstacles that keep them out of the labour market. These include language, education, skills, and employers’ reluctance to get work permits for them. These constraints expose refugees to the dangers of informal work and threaten their food security. The large number of refugees in Türkiye has exerted considerable strain on public resources, services, and social cohesion. Poverty is a significant issue for refugees, who continue to rely on social assistance for survival. Under the new Country Strategic Plan approved in November 2022, WFP Türkiye maintained its support to the Government in offering life-saving food assistance to refugees and host communities, and enhancing their self-reliance. In this respect, WFP works with government partners, United Nations agencies and civil society under the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan for Türkiye to improve the living conditions of Syrian refugees and host communities to achieve the Sustainable Development Goals. Across the year, WFP in-camp e-voucher programme in collaboration with the Turkish Red Crescent , assisted over 64,000 refugees including around 2,700 Ukrainians in seven camps in the southeast with a monthly assistance of 300 Turkish lira per person. The Presidency of Migration Management adopted a camp decongestion strategy which involves closing some of the camps and consolidating vulnerable refugee households with special needs in Adana camp. The camp residents were supported by PMM to settle in urban areas or move back to Syria. WFP started talks with PMM to explore the potential of including other earthquake affected Syrian settlements in the programme. Within the first 48 hours of the twin earthquakes, WFP launched an emergency response, under the umbrella of the UN Türkiye earthquake flash appeal , which reached over 2.2 million earthquake-affected Turkish nationals and refugees with food and cash assistance. WFP’s extensive network of partnerships, Government, local actors and UN agencies enabled a swift assistance ramp-up inside and outside the camps. Around 1.6 million affected people received food assistance consisting of family food packages inside camps and cooked meals and ready-to-eat rations in urban areas. WFP and its partners also provided seven mobile kitchens to municipalities and governorates. This assistance was vital at the onset of the response considering the extensive damage and impacts on markets. In parallel, WFP and Turkish Red Crescent extended the e-voucher assistance to over 98,000 earthquake-affected Turkish citizens and Syrian refugees registered outside the camps as well as refugees from other nationalities , who took shelter in WFP-assisted camps. Robust donors support enabled WFP to increase the monthly value of the e-voucher in camps from 230 Turkish lira per person to TRY 555 per person or TRY 2,500 per household during the earthquake emergency response. This amount covered around 97 percent of the food basket cost estimated at TRY 572 in December 2022. As markets resumed functioning, WFP provided multi-purpose cash under the "Collective Kindness" initiative during the months of April, May and August, in cooperation with the Ministry of Family and Social Services, TRC, and the International Federation of Red Cross and Red Crescent Societies . Aimed at empowering families with the choice to address their essential food and non-food needs in local markets, while helping boost market recovery, the initiative benefitted over 700,000 Turkish and Syrian refugees in host communities in 12 provinces with TRY 8,600 per household. Out of them, 27 percent were under the age of 18 and 50 percent were women and girls. In 2023, WFP strengthened its partnerships with the Government at national, provincial and local levels across the emergency and post-emergency response, along with the humanitarian stakeholders and UN agencies. In support of the earthquake response, WFP co-led the Emergency Telecommunications Sector response, together with the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure to extend data connectivity to humanitarian hubs. It also established a ‘logistics sector coordination mechanism’ to provide inter-agency coordination, information sharing and support the humanitarian community with transportation services, functional warehouses and storage solutions. WFP continued to support the shift from humanitarian assistance to self-reliance through dignified employment opportunities under the Socioeconomic Empowerment and Sustainability Programme via vocational and on-the-job training to equip vulnerable refugees and host communities with the necessary skills to access long-term employment. During the period of April to November 2023, WFP implemented an early recovery cash for work initiative which placed 600 earthquake-affected people in jobs to help them restore their livelihoods. Türkiye remained also a strategic food supply partner for WFP at both global and regional levels, evidenced by the food commodities worth USD 133 million that WFP bought from the country in 2023. It played a prominent geopolitical role in the Black Sea Grain Initiative, negotiated in July 2022 with the UN and Russia which enabled WFP to ship around 750,000 mt of Ukrainian grain to countries facing the worst food crises such as Afghanistan, Ethiopia, Somalia and Sudan.

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