Guests of the Kingdom: Jordan and the refugee crises 2016

2015

News The first UNHCR 2015-update on the refugee situation in Jordan has just been published. It is stated, that “UNHCR’s foremost priority remains to ensure that Jordan’s largely favourable protection environment is maintained in 2015, despite new arrivals of Syrians potentially further straining already limited resources.” The Jordanian approach to receiving what in the planning figures for 2015 together with the ones already arrived will add up to almost three quarters of a million Syrian refugees, has been one of hospitality, despite, as noted in the update, substantial problems for a country with approximately 6.5 million inhabitants with relatively scarce Jordanian resources.

Migration Policy Centre, 2015

As of February 2015, over 622,000 Syrians had registered with UNHCR in Jordan. The protracted nature of the Syrian crisis has been dramatic: both the Syrian refugees themselves and the host communities in Jordan are paying a high price. Further political and economic deterioration may follow as the number of refugees is simply too great for Jordan to deal with. The EU and its member states have been actively involved in responding to the Syrian crisis both in political and humanitarian terms. The European approach has primarily consisted in providing support to the countries bordering Syria, in order to contain the crisis within the Middle East. However, as of 2014 and early 2015, worrying changes in the Jordanian Government’s attitude towards Syrian refugees show how such an approach is becoming unsustainable.

Civil war in Syria has caused a refugee crisis in neighbouring Jordan, raising the latter's population by at least 8 per cent. For Jordanians, the highly visible presence of many thousands of refugees living in their midst -mostly in urban areas, rather than camps -has raised fears over competition for resources and opportunities.

The aim of this study is to shed light on the socio- political effects of the Syrian refugee crisis on Jordan. The study tackles the socio political impact of the flow of hundreds of thousands of Syrian refugees to Jordan during the past nine years. The study is based on a mixed approach, the descriptive and the historical. The results of the study show that the Syrian refugee crisis has politically and socially affected Jordan negatively. What makes matters worse and deepens the effects of the crisis in Jordan is the inability of the successive governments to deal strategically with the crisis. The study concluded with some suggested recommendations that may mitigate the negative impact of the crisis on Jordan.

Jordan and Lebanon have both generously received refugees from Syria since the outbreak of the crisis in 2011. Of all neighbouring countries they host the largest number of Syrian refugees relative to their overall populations. Yet after years of relative openness new regulations have made entry and movement more difficult while making lives more precarious. Syrian refugees have also been severely affected by funding shortages in the global humanitarian response. The resulting squeeze has led to an increasing sense of despair and many have attempted to leave both countries. The situation, however, is arguably worse in Lebanon than it is in Jordan. Syrian refugees in Jordan have experienced glimpses of hope since the February 2016 donors conference, which promised to facilitate their access to the labour market. This article introduces some parallels, as well as notable differences in the way the Syrian refugee crisis has evolved in both countries, particularly over the course of 2015-6.

There are currently about 650,000 Syrian refugees in Jordan making up about 6.5% of the country's 10 million population. The majority of the refugees live in urban areas and towns while fewer than 20% live in camps.

The Journal of International Studies , 2018

The civil war in Syria has caused a mass influx of Syrian refugees into other countries throughout the region and beyond. Jordan has received a large share of Syrian refugees, currently totaling to the alarming number of 1.2 mln people. Addressing the need of Syrian refugees has drained the resources of Jordanian government and has had its substantial impact on Jordanian society overall. In an effort to better understand the humanitarian, political, economic, sociocultural and environmental challenges to Jordan and its government, this study has developed a comprehensive analytical framework. The comprehensive analytical framework has been developed based on the system thinking approach and the systematic review of gray literature and peer-reviewed articles. This framework provides a better capacity to discover the potential consequences of a massive refugee influx and covers the vital factors based on the realistic criteria regarding the burden of refugees on the formulation of policies. The analytical framework is applied to Jordan as the receiving state since the influx of Syrian refugees into Jordan in 2011 to 2015 and it potentially could be used as a comparative analytical tool for other receiving states.

The study examines the issue of Syrian refugees in jordan in the field of international relation and the effectiveness of the international community organization and international bodies in resolving this crisis and show the role of intenational community and host country to manage this issue .This study based on the analytical descriptive and approach to review the most important problems related to psychological, family, and economic dimension. In addition, study if there are statistically significant differences in the problems experienced by the Syrian refugees due to demographic variables (gender, number of family members).the results show that the most prominent problems of ther refugees family and the average extent of their failure to benefit from the guidance programs provided to them and on other hand the Economic Disability of the host country to assist Syrian refugees.