Between March 17th and 21st, CARE conducted a Rapid WASH assessment across 78 IDP sites in Idlib and Aleppo Governorate, together with partners IYD, Shafak and Syria Relief.
The displacement of close to one million people since December 2019 has resulted in a very high number of IDP-sites being setup by families on the move. These sites are not planned and many of them do not have the most basic services or infrastructure available. Other sites have grown significantly as new arrivals have settled next to existing camp-like facilities. Increasingly, reports from the areas have highlighted massive gaps in WASH services across these sites and particularly the lack of safe WASH facilities has been reported as a protection concern for girls and women. Simultaneously, the global COVID-19 outbreak has increased the urgency for gaps in WASH services to be addressed. The lack of access to clean water, handwashing facilities and soap undermines any initiative to prevent large scale outbreaks in North West Syria.
CARE, with its partners, therefore conducted a Rapid WASH Assessment across IDP-sites focusing mainly on two basic aspects: availability/usage/status of latrines and availability/usage of clean water, handwashing facilities and soap.
The assessment highlights that:
 Adequate access to sanitation facilities is available in only 10% of the assessed locations. 45% of sites do not have any latrines. For the 55% of sites with latrines, average is 240 individuals per latrine.
 The assessed IDP sites are critically lacking access to clean water, handwashing facilities and soap. Only 37% of the sites have sufficient and regular access to water supplies. As many as 83% of the sites have no access to handwashing facilities. A catastrophic 91% does not have access to soap.
 Very limited, if any, WASH support has reached the assessed locations. Only 44% of the sites report having received any WASH NFI’s in the past two months.