Identifying informal shelter needs through creating an address system and mapping
Challenge
More than 222,000 refugees live across more than 3,500 informal tented settlements in Lebanon’s Bekaa Valley. Standardised shelter criteria determine households’ eligibility for additional shelter kits, but the absence of a tent-level address system hinders this process.
Solution
An address system for informal tented settlements, using a code for each tent. Part of the code will be fixed, reflecting the tent’s location, and another part will change based on the physical condition of the tent, to better link household needs with assistance and services.
Impact
This tent-level address system will enable UNHCR to monitor household location and conditions, enabling more efficient and accurate identification of needs and the required response, and supporting the health and safety of families in Bekaa.
Project impact
Other information
Lebanon hosts nearly 800,000 Syrian refugees, with over half living in dangerous, substandard or overcrowded shelters scattered across thousands of informal tented settlements that have no addresses, making it extremely difficult to track who lives where and respond effectively to crises. Funded by the Data Innovation Fund, UNHCR Lebanon's SPARROW project created the first data-driven address system for these settlements: each tent now has a unique code that captures its precise location, structural condition and access to water, sanitation and hygiene services, updated automatically with every assessment and shelter kit delivered. Co-designed with refugees, shelter, protection and GIS colleagues, the tool already streamlines weather-proofing, emergency response and public health interventions (originally developed during the cholera outbreak to delineate quarantine areas), restores dignity to families by giving them a recognised "address," and is being scaled nationwide with SOPs in development for global replication.