(MENAFN- Jordan News Agency) The Syrian crisis, which has led to an exodus of nearly 4 million refugees into neighboring countries and has been called the worst refugee crisis of our era, poses not only an immense humanitarian challenge, but for those countries struggling to cope with the effects of hosting hundreds of thousands of refugees it is also a national resilience issue, said Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Imad Fakhoury.
In Jordan, where the great majority of refugees are living in urban areas and accessing services alongside Jordanians, the type of life-saving emergency support that humanitarian assistance is designed to provide is neither sustainable nor sufficient.
"We are pioneering the institutionalization of the response within a national framework in order to more effectively and efficiently address both the immediate term impacts of the crisis while also investing in longer-term resilience building" said Fakhoury in a prerecorded video message during a session entitled "Supporting the transition from relief to development: promoting recovery and resilience" at the United Nations Economic and Social Council's Humanitarian Affairs Segment in Geneva on Wednesday.
Chaired by Ms. Flavia Pansieri, the United Nations Deputy High Commissioner for Human Rights, the purpose of the event was to highlight the new and innovative approaches of promoting recovery and resilience in crisis and post-crisis settings.
Speaking on a panel together with the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinators from Jordan and Sierra Leonne; the Sierra Leonean Minister of Finance and Economic Development; and the UN Secretary-General's Special Envoy on Ebola; the Minister presented the Jordan Response Plan (JRP): a ground-breaking initiative that aims to address some of the biggest challenges of transitioning from relief to development.
Jordan currently hosts around 1.4 million Syrians, of whom an estimated 750,000 were in the country before the conflict in Syria began and are now unable to return, increasing the country's total population by 20%. Of the nearly630,000 Syrian refugees registered with UNHCR, over 80% are settled in urban areas in some of the country's poorest towns and cities. The Minister explained that what started in Jordan as an emergency camp management operation has evolved into a protracted crisis affecting nearly every sector and threatening to undermine the development gains achieved in the last decade.
The education sector is struggling to cope with the huge number of additional pupils. The number of Syrian refugee schoolchildren in Jordan has risen to 141,000, up from about 121,000 at the start of the year, but many school-age refugee children remain outside classrooms. Schools are suffering from shortages of qualified teachers, and there are concerns about declining quality as a result.
In terms of health services, demand on the public sector continues to grow and the increased burden on Ministry of Health facilities € over 707,000 Syrian refugees accessed MOH clinics and hospitals in 2014 - has affected access and quality of care. Health services are stretched to the limit, some medicines running short, and long-eradicated diseases are reappearing.
Demand for water has increased by 20% nationally, and 40% in the north since the breakout of the crisis. Jordan is one of the most water scarce countries worldwide, but the great proportion of renewable surface water has been utilized, groundwater is being unsustainably exploited, and the remaining usable sources are gradually diminishing.
Hosting over 1.4 million Syrians has also heavily impacted Jordan's fiscal position, exacerbating pressure on public finances, increasing government expenditure on subsidies for bread, water, electricity, and gas, and further inflating the budget deficit. The overall financial impact to date of the direct and indirect costs of the crisis is estimated to be in the range of US$7.9 billion.
This is excluding the cost of humanitarian or resilience interventions, and accounts for the additional expenditures in education, health, subsidies, and income losses incurred by the government since 2011 as a result of hosting refugees.
"With continued pressure on public services and the protracted nature of the crisis, the humanitarian impact is now also significantly felt in development terms in Jordan" said Mr. Edward Kallon, the UN Resident and Humanitarian Coordinator in Jordan via videoconference during the event.
"The aim of resilience-oriented programming is two-fold, first to ensure that shocks and stresses do not lead to a long-term deterioration in the wellbeing of a particular individual, household, system or institution, and secondly to build capacity to absorb future shocks and deal appropriately with related stresses" explained Fakhoury.
By providing assistance equally to refugees, national institutions and host communities, with an aim to strengthen public services and enhance social cohesion, the JRP is bridging the gap between humanitarian aid as a rapid response measure in crisis situations and more medium and long-term development action required to support the country's communities and institutions cope and recover from the crisis.
The government has also taken a number of steps to reconcile the disjointed aid architecture and strengthen overall transparency and accountability, including streamlining the project approval process for JRP projects and launching a new financial tracking system to track donor contributions against the plan.
During the event, panelists stressed the need to support national efforts to manage the effects of crises, highlighting the importance of strong government ownership and leadership. Participants commended Jordan for its innovative approach and commitment to resilience-based development in the face of immense challenges.
"The Jordanians are setting the standard in their evolving response," said Mr. Kallon, "in over two decades working with the UN, this is the first time I have witnessed such strong national leadership in the development of transition plans aiming to move from relief to recovery and development." The burden of providing for refugees has fallen squarely on the shoulders of Syria's neighbors, but international support is not sufficient to meet the needs.
Jordan's tripartite US$2.99 billion JRP 2015 € which addresses refugee, resilience, and budget support needs - remains dangerously underfunded. Only, 12% of the required US$1.9 billion has been received for the refugee and resilience programmatic support elements.
Minister Fakhoury emphasized that "With the Third International Conference on Financing for Development in Addis Ababa on the horizon, all options to support countries hosting refugees on behalf of the international community should be employed, reminding all of Jordan's call on improving the eligibility criteria for vulnerable middle-income countries to access development assistance and cheaper and innovative financing.
This includes: increasing sufficiently financial support provided to fund the Jordan Response Plan; providing preferential concessional terms for accessing untapped funds; swapping loans and relieving debt; softening the terms and conditions for both existing and new loans; and increasing debt limits." "The international community can count on Jordan to continue doing its part," said the Minister, "but we cannot be left alone in this effort." In an intervention made via videoconference, Dr. Saleh Kharabsheh, Secretary General of the Jordan Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation, emphasized the need to support institutional mechanisms and praised the UN in Jordan for its support and cooperation in this regard.
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