Case study

CARE Lebanon: 70,000 people reached, fifty euros of staff time saved for every euro spent

· How CARE Lebanon's accountability team transformed communication with communities, and turned the bot into a lifeline when the conflict escalated.

In humanitarian crisis zones, clear communication can be a matter of survival. Organizations face the massive challenge of not only distributing physical aid like food and cash but also managing the complex flow of information, complaints, and feedback from affected populations.

To streamline this process, CARE Lebanon adopted the SOLIS Bot in June 2024. Primarily managed by the Accountability team within the Monitoring, Evaluation, Accountability, and Learning (MEAL) department, the chatbot has transformed how the organization interacts with beneficiaries across all 12 of its active projects.

A WhatsApp account that could no longer keep up

Prior to adopting the SOLIS Bot, CARE Lebanon relied heavily on manual outreach and traditional communication channels, including a standard WhatsApp Business account equipped with basic automated replies.

However, as the scale of their humanitarian efforts grew, the basic WhatsApp setup couldn't keep pace. The system offered limited features, leaving CARE staff unable to track or reply to the sheer volume of incoming messages. Even after implementing further automated replies on WhatsApp Business, the problem persisted. CARE needed a more powerful, scalable, and sophisticated solution that could centralize communication, keep accurate records, and ease the overwhelming manual load on field staff.

Proving Its Value in a Crisis

The true value of the SOLIS Bot was realized during the heavy escalation of hostilities in Lebanon between September and November 2024. During this volatile period, the bot provided a highly resource, time, and cost-effective tool that offered accessible information and a critical Feedback and Complaints Response Mechanism (FCRM) entry point for people affected by the conflict.

As highlighted by CARE in their July 2025 "Accountability in Action" case study:

"The WhatsApp-based chatbot offered 24/7 access to assistance requests, information, and feedback submission. It was particularly popular among younger users and those with limited airtime credit, processing over 7,000 entries during the response."

By automating 70% of common queries, the bot dramatically reduced pressure on CARE staff, allowing them to shift valuable resources and attention to complex protection cases and critical field outreach. Usage rose in lockstep with tensions in the country: monthly traffic peaked at 9,044 users in July 2025 during a wave of targeted strikes and again at 11,616 in May 2026, when physical access to communities was most restricted.

For beneficiaries, the Bot compressed the time to get an answer from an estimated 4.5 hours of travelling and queuing down to about 3 minutes. Across CARE's caseload, that adds up to over 9,000 days of beneficiary waiting time saved.

An everyday tool, not just an emergency one

Reducing the bot to a crisis device would be an oversimplification. Day to day, CARE uses it across its full portfolio:

  • Service mapping: Directing beneficiaries to available services and contact points, with a specific focus on CARE's offerings.
  • Key messaging: Mass-disseminating digital flyers and information regarding Prevention of Sexual Exploitation and Abuse (PSEA) and Accountability to Affected Populations (AAP).
  • Broadcast announcements: Efficiently informing and organizing communities for upcoming food or cash distributions and training sessions.
  • Rapid monitoring & assessments: Conducting quick remote needs assessments and Post-Distribution Monitoring (PDM) surveys. Because the surveys are short and can be completed directly within the bot or via integrated links, CARE reports an exceptional average response rate of 70%.

The bot also serves the teams themselves. In the field, a dedicated module lets staff refer an urgent case in seconds while on the field, without waiting to get back to the office.

The maths that change the picture

For 30 to 60 minutes of daily management over ten months, the bot sent more than 278,000 information messages, 9,000 broadcasts and gathered 7,924 answers to surveys. By automating 70 percent of routine questions, it freed the teams for the complex cases that demand a human presence. While this is not an indicator on costs saved, this is a strong indicator to measure the efficiency of information diffusion: with the same human resources + 12 000€ of SOLIS bot costs, CARE was able to leverage its communication capabilities and multiply the reach of its data collection.

Moreover 97 percent of conversations are started spontaneously by beneficiaries, with no broadcast prompting them. It is the highest organic share anywhere in the SOLIS network. In other words, people come back to the bot on their own, because it is useful to them. At roughly €0.15 per beneficiary reached, CARE's deployment demonstrates that accessible, always-on communication scales affordably.

Link to CARE's case study: https://www.linkedin.com/posts/joram-n-kibigo-b-a-m-a-ppm-prince2%C2%AE-dsl-c-91b09831_humanitarianleadership-accountabilitytoaffectedpopulations-activity-7358577811101483008-uX5P

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