Beirut, Sep 14 (IANS): The Lebanon Humanitarian Fund (LHF) has allocated $8 million to help vulnerable families in the country hit by an unprecedented financial crisis, the UN Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (OCHA), operator of the fund, said.

"Vulnerable families in Lebanon are affected by insufficient access to water, unaffordable prices of basic commodities, and limited access to life-saving services. We need to act to avoid a further deterioration of the humanitarian situation," said Edouard Beigbeder, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator for Lebanon.

This LHF allocation will provide urgent and critical life-saving assistance to all population groups, ensure the minimum continuity of water services, support the return to school, and protect those most in need, Xinhua news agency quoted the OCHA statement as saying.

The fund would prioritise 17 sectoral and multisectoral projects in the education, child protection, shelter and water, sanitation and hygiene sectors with the highest severity of needs, it added.

"More than half of the funding will target Lebanese people, and the remaining will go to migrants and Palestinian and Syrian refugees," it noted.

In line with the LHF's vision to boost the localization agenda in Lebanon, 29 per cent of the allocation funding is disbursed to local and national non-governmental organisations, it added.