Section 1: Strategic Statement

In the early hours of 6 February, multiple earthquakes, the strongest being of 7.7 magnitude on the Richter scale struck southern Türkiye and northern Syria. Communities in at least 35 sub-districts in north-west Syria (NWS) have been affected, impacting an estimated 3,04 million people. The earthquake hit during harsh winter conditions with freezing temperatures at a time when communities already have been under severe stress, compounded by over ten years of hostilities and protracted displacements. Humanitarian needs were already immense before the earthquakes, with an estimated 4.1 million people in need of assistance at the end of 2022. In the aftermath of this unprecedented natural disaster, the Syria Cross-border Humanitarian Fund (SCHF) is launching a series of Reserve Allocations, aiming to release at least US$50 million in two phases:

EQR Phase 1 – First Reserve Allocation focusing on lifesaving immediate response (indicative US$ 30 million),

EQR Phase 2 – Second Reserve Allocation lifesaving and life sustaining medium term response: (indicative US$ 20 million).

Under Phase 1, the first Reserve Allocation will help to rapidly scale up the humanitarian response in the affected areas. This allocation will be critical to immediately address life-threatening needs of the affected population, particularly those of newly displaced families, elderly, women, children, and people with disability who are disproportionately separated from families. SCHF partners guided by the priorities outlined in this strategy will be focusing on aid delivery for the first three to six months, with Phase 2 and the second Reserve Allocation to focus on medium- term response.

The vision of the Deputy Resident Humanitarian Coordinator a.i. on surge for this allocation in two phases is to provide immediate relief to the population, scale up the response of the humanitarian community within a medium-term approach. At the same time, the approach will allow sufficient time for the generous newly pledged contribution to be available. This crisis comes at a time when the SCHF has utilised all available resources under the 2022 second Standard Allocation (SA2) functioning only with limited resources being supported with a loan from CERF.

In all supported interventions SCHF partners will include strategic cross-cutting elements including gender, protection, and accountability to ensure effective programming and response.

Source: UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs