Prepared by the Media and Communication Department at the Arab Network for Early Childhood

March 26, 2025

The food insecurity issue in Lebanon is not recent. It is the result of decades-old policies where the spheres of agriculture, economics, politics, and security overlap. Since its formulation in 1996, the concept of food security has encompassed four pillars: food availability, accessibility, utilization, and stability. With a conceptual variation, the terms “food security” and “food sovereignty” have sometimes been considered antagonistic. Whereas the latter proceeds from the right of states and individuals to produce their own food and control its resources, the former is limited to the right to adequate access to food regardless of its source.

Many factors contribute to the destabilization of food security in Lebanon. The most important ones are the following:

• Lebanon hosting the largest number of refugees per capita in the world.
• Low water productivity and excessive water use for irrigation.
• Increased water pollution in addition to the sharp decline in rainfall this year.
• Dependence on food imports and limited contribution of the agricultural sector to the Lebanese national economy (According to ESCWA, the public budget allocated to this sector did not exceed an average of 2% between 2004 and 2019.)
• Weak performance of logistics services that are already low.
• Economic contraction exceeding 34% of real GDP since 2019 with stagnant investments.
• Exacerbation of the economic crisis since 2018 leading to inflation, particularly in food prices.
• Malfunctioning of the vital sectors.
• Absence of robust social safety nets for individuals and families.
• Economic and social impacts of successive disasters and crises, such as the 2020 Beirut port explosion and the COVID-19 pandemic.

The recent Israeli war aggravated the crises. In a report published earlier this year, the Integrated Food Security Phase Classification (IPC) indicated in alarming figures that 30% of the population in Lebanon suffered from acute food insecurity at the beginning of 2025. IPC predicted that food insecurity would persist until March 2025 with no short-term return to pre-crisis conditions. With the effects of the war continuing amid the fragility of the ceasefire and ongoing Israeli violations and attacks, these predictions proved to be true three months later.

Moreover, for the first time, hunger conditions classified as IPC Phase 4, also known as the Emergency phase, were recorded during the war in Lebanon specifically in the city of Baalbek (northeastern Lebanon). This means that families are facing high rates of malnutrition and resorting to harmful coping mechanisms, including child labor, illegal activities, or taking on crippling debts. Nevertheless, the classification report had painted a less bleak picture for the first three months of the year 2025, predicting an improvement in food conditions in that region. However, the challenge remains. The security conditions in the region, the influx of new refugees, and the ongoing Israeli violations place an additional burden on policies designed to reduce food gaps and improve the conditions of families and children in the most marginalized and impoverished areas.

Conditions of children in the overall picture
Over the past years, children in Lebanon have suffered successive traumas that have impacted various aspects of their lives, most notably food. While children, women, and refugees are considered the most affected by food insecurity, children top the list. According to Save the Children, nearly one third of children in Lebanon began the current year facing crisis levels of hunger.

Furthermore, in an analysis of the aforementioned IPC report, Save the Children had estimated that 526,000 children in Lebanon are projected by March 2025 to be in “crisis”, “emergency”, or “catastrophe” levels of hunger (IPC Phase 3 and above), compared to about 504,000 children in October 2024. Previously published data showed a 5% increase in child hunger between October and December 2024.

Today, one of four children under the age of five suffers from severe food insecurity, threatening to increase rates of child wasting. In this context, the IPC report had mentioned a first-of-its-kind study conducted in collaboration with the Lebanese Ministry of Public Health. The study indicated that three of four children under the age of five are eating diets lacking diversity, leaving them vulnerable to stunting and wasting.

The deteriorating health and hospital systems and the meager provision of health insurance for individuals and families further exacerbate the situation. These obstacles hinder children, mothers, and caregivers from accessing their public right to medical services, forcing them to resort to private institutions to fulfill their rights, with parents bearing the cost. To add is the dependency of more than half of the population in Lebanon on basic food aid since before the outbreak of the recent Israeli war. One of the risks of this dependency is its vulnerability to any change in aid policy, whether in terms of the aids volume or the distribution criteria.

The concerns of past years are coming true
All these figures are not surprising. In early 2023, for example, Lebanon ranked sixth in the world for the worst food crisis in terms of the percentage of the population suffering from food insecurity.

At the time, Save the Children had warned that the number of children in Lebanon facing critical levels of hunger was projected to increase by 14% at the beginning of the year 2023 unless urgent action was taken. In addition, 277000 children under 5 were experiencing food poverty in early childhood, a third of which suffering from severe food poverty. This means they lived on extremely poor diets consisting of only two food groups.

With a succession of crises, it seems that the concerns and warnings voiced over the past years regarding the deterioration of food security in Lebanon and its impact on children are coming true. In a broader view, Lebanon is part of a region suffering from worsening hunger year after year as the challenges facing the region increase, a fact confirmed by a detailed UN report at the end of last year.

The bigger the challenges, the bigger are the responsibilities. Hence, prioritizing the eradication of child malnutrition is the responsibility of the Lebanese government and the humanitarian and development partners working in the childhood sector and in other sectors, including civil society organizations and non-governmental organizations. It is also the responsibility of the private sector, based on its social responsibility, to invest in health systems, care, protection, and nutritional services to ensure every child’s right to food and proper nutrition.