AMMAN — The
Syrian refugee crisis shows no sign of an
imminent end, and the hundreds of thousands of refugees hosted by
Jordan may
stay for another 10 years, an international organization’s official has said.
اضافة اعلان
In an interview with
Jordan News, Sharifa Sarra Ghazi, the
International Rescue Committee’s country director in Jordan, said: “I can
imagine that we will be marking 20 years of the Syrian crisis, unfortunately,
and that really is something very hard to say,” she said.
The
UN estimated in the early years of the conflict that
the refugee problem might stay unresolved for 17 years.
Country Director Ghazi pointed out that destruction,
violence, and poverty in Syria mean that most Syrian refugees do not intend to
return in the near future, presenting a number of challenges for Jordan’s
economic development, which has struggled to adapt to the influx of Syrian refugees
that began 10 years ago.
International aid organizations and governments alike
must adapt to provide viable economic solutions for refugees, she said in the
interview, as the world marks Labor Day.
She cautioned that if jobs and better living conditions
are not created for all, there might emerge a “ somewhat competitive environment between Jordanians and non-Jordanians, that in itself will create a
very insecure society.”
She also pointed out that the combination of a high
number of youth and refugees in Jordan will increase strain on the country’s
economy.
“The number of jobs we have to create over the next two
decades just for the youth is enormously challenging. And then coupled with that
the non-Jordanian family that we have in the country that just compounds the
problem.”
The International Rescue Committee (IRC) is a global
nonprofit working in 40 countries to provide humanitarian aid, relief, and
development. The organization, originally founded in New York in 1933, now serves refugees and people displaced by
war, persecution, or natural disaster.
In response to the said challenges facing Jordan as a
host and the international community, she explained that one of the approaches
her organization is adopting is that “we look at a community as a whole” rather
than dividing beneficiaries based on their nationality and/or status.
“We are moving away from responding to the needs
according to status in the country, according to nationality,” Ghazi said. “It
is about true empowerment, and solutions for a whole community that can then
become independent, innovative and self-sustained.”
Ghazi explained that the organization provides economic recovery and development for its beneficiaries through a variety of mechanisms, including
job training and small business grants. During the COVID-19 pandemic, the organization
developed a business continuity plan to allow clients forced to close their
business during the pandemic to reopen them again; 26 business owners received
an emergency grant averaging $1,000.
Speaking to the importance of economic support, said:
“When you look at the individual, everybody has the right to live a dignified
life,” Ghazi said. “And the only way of doing that is to be independent, to be
resilient, and to be self-sufficient. When you look at a country, the country
depends on the people to be independent, resilient, and self-sustainable.”
Ghazi also described the importance of the IRC’s local
and international partnerships. The organization currently has 21 partnerships
in Jordan, she said, a value which has quadrupled in the last year. But she
explained that the partnerships have entailed a learning curve.
“We have been guilty before of sort of looking at them as
service providers. And that is not partnership; that is almost like me signing
a contract and having somebody do a job for you,” she said. “Now, what we do is
we actually develop programs together, we look for opportunities together, and
we grow together.” She explained that as the organization nears its 100th
anniversary, “it’s an organization that has a wealth of experience. And we are
very committed to sharing that experience. Because that is how we believe that
we can have a much stronger and better impact in the country.” Rather than an
IRC-based approach, she described their approach as “a nation-wide
participatory and partnership-based approach. The most crucial partner in this
whole thing is the beneficiary.”
One key area for partnerships is the private sector.
Ghazi quoted an Arabic saying that “one hand does not clap alone.” “In this
case, it’s many hands, all of us have a big part to play in coordination, and
actually, again, finding the best way forward.” However, she noted that the
“partnership in itself is difficult because the situation is difficult. ...
Immediately it’s more attractive in a way to employ Jordanians because you
don’t have to do work permits, you don’t have to do this, it’s much easier. We
understand the challenges that the private sector has when it comes to
employing non-Jordanians.” She explained that “we are studying very closely and
advocating and trying to find ways forward, where it’s not an ‘either or’
competition.”
The pandemic has exacerbated existing social
inequalities, according to Ghazi. “I think that as a whole society, everybody
is struggling,” she said. “Everybody has been impacted in some way. ... Any form of vulnerability has only been made worse, and any community or person who has any form of vulnerability immediately becomes weaker in a context such as COVID-19, unfortunately.”
For the IRC, the pandemic has also provided an unexpected
silver lining. “There are many small communities across the country who don’t
have access to us as an organization or as a whole sector or as any service
provider, and we don’t have access to them,” Ghazi said, explaining that the
switch to online services for IRC's beneficiaries living outside of the camps in urban areas has actually encouraged the organization to make its
services accessible to beneficiaries across the country.
According to Ghazi, some beneficiaries have themselves
reported, feeling more comfortable with online services. “One of the reasons is
that they don’t have transportation costs anymore. It’s something as simple as
that. Just a few piasters here and there to get to our center, they don’t have
that luxury anymore. That’s one of the adaptations we have to bear in mind.”
The organization is adapting so that “anyone in any area
of the country, as long as they have access to a platform or phone with
connectivity, they have equal access to the services we provide,” a change
accelerated by the pandemic.
She added that the concentration of activity in urban
centers presents challenges in finding jobs for many people living outside
those centers, in addition to preventing them from accessing services like
those of the IRC."
“Opportunities need to be opened up in different governorates
in different villages, and smaller towns and cities across the country so that
we don’t have the big concentration in the very big urban centers.”
“Hope is a really important part of the fabric of what
makes us human,” Ghazi concluded. “When you lose hope, you lose your
willingness to live. ... And that is what we all have to be able to do, to
allow people to have hope and then take that one step further and make sure
those hopes and dreams are actually followed through and become a reality.”
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