Our Stories

A Lebanese farmer in Tayr Haifa. View the Lebanon photo gallery.

The 2006 July War in Lebanon caused nearly 975,000 people to flee their homes at the height of emergency, but most estimate that more than 700,000 displaced persons have returned to their home areas since the ceasefire.

On July 29, 2006, within the first weeks of the hostilities, IRD sent an assessment team to determine how best to respond to the escalating crisis with the help of its local partner, the International Center for Organizational Development (ICOD).

In September 2006, the Department for International Development (DfID), the UK government department dealing in humanitarian aid, awarded IRD a grant to provide assistance to poor rural households in southern Lebanon adversely affected by the July War. The project, which continued for four months, focused on ten small villages in the Tyre District of southern Lebanon and has benefited more than eight thousand people.

By the end of the project, IRD project staff in Beirut and Tyre disbursed more than $620,000 in direct economic recovery and development assistance funds in the region. The project was made possible by the collaborative efforts of IRD, ICOD, and the communities of rural southern Lebanon. IRD works in cooperation with, and with the express appreciation of, municipal councils and moukhtars in these communities and maintains program offices and staff in Beirut both to continue that relationship and explore new program development.


Programs
- Emergency Relief and Employment Project
- National Initiative for Sorting and Recycling (NISR)
- Entrepreneurship for Refugees (EFR) Program


Contact
George Jeries
Acting Country Director
Beirut, Lebanon