The Jordanian Minister of Planning, Nasser Al-Sharida, announced on Sunday that his country needs $ 2.4 billion from international donors in order to meet the needs of the Syrian refugees on the kingdom’s territories during the current year.
In statements to the official Al-Mamlaka channel, Al-Shuraida said, "2.4 billion dollars are our needs to finance the response plan to the Syrian crisis for this year."
He continued: "Part of this funding is allocated to meet the direct needs and priorities of Syrian refugees, whether in the camps or host communities, a part for the host communities, and a part to compensate the public treasury for capital expenditures for various services such as education, health and other services."
"Jordan, which has hosted 1.3 million Syrian refugees and has ensured a decent life for them, suffers from economic pressures and needs more attention, so the international community must abide by its previous commitments," al-Shuraida added.
"Since last week, we addressed the various donor countries and international institutions, and we emphasized to them the importance of providing the required support to enable us to provide the basic needs and priorities of the Syrian refugees," he added.
The minister concluded, "We launched this plan in light of the preparations for the international conference on Syrian refugees, which will start its work in Brussels tomorrow."
Ten years have passed since the outbreak of the war in Syria, the representative of the World Food Program and the country director in Jordan, Alberto Correa Mendes, said that “according to WFP estimates, a quarter of the refugees throughout Jordan are food insecure and 65 percent are on the verge of food insecurity, which is A significant increase since the start of the (Covid-19) epidemic. "
Food insecurity is a situation in which people have limited or uncertain ability to obtain adequate food.
Jordan hosts about 650,000 Syrian refugees registered with the United Nations, while Amman estimates the number of those who have sought refuge in the Kingdom since the outbreak of the conflict in Syria at about 1.3 million.
Oman says hosting them cost the kingdom more than $ 10 billion by the end of 2017.
In January 2018, the government and UN organizations approved a response plan to the Syrian crisis in the Kingdom for the years 2018 to 2020, with funding of approximately 7.3 billion dollars, an average of 2.4 billion dollars annually.
The Corona pandemic exacerbated the difficult economic conditions in Jordan.
The poverty rate, according to official figures in Jordan in the fall of 2020, was about 15.7 percent.
The unemployment rate rose in 2020 to about 23 percent, in a country whose public debt exceeded 102 percent of GDP.
