Donors endorse Jordan’s $7.3bn Syria refugee response plan

The Jordanian government and the international community yesterday endorsed the Jordan Response Platform to the Syria Crisis (JRPSC) for the years 2018-2020 with total funding of $7.3 billion.

The plan was approved during the tenth meeting of the Jordan Response Platform (JRP) held under the chairmanship of Jordan Prime Minister, Hani Al-Mulki, with the participation of the Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, Imad Najib Fakhoury, and representatives of donor countries and international organisations.

Jordan News Agency (Petra) said the Jordanian government and its embassies abroad will use the plan as a reference to determine the government’s needs to limit the impact of hosting the Syrian refugees and supporting host communities and the treasury.

In 2017 Jordan received $1.7 billion in external grants to finance its response plan for the Syrian crisis which is equivalent to only 59 per cent of the Kingdom’s needs for the year.

Read: Jordan, Greece and Cyprus say more support needed to states on refugee frontline

“The chances that four million Syrians displaced around the world return to their home country are still far away,” Al-Mulki said during the meeting.

“Even if a peaceful solution is achieved, it will take years to rebuild Syria and resettle the Syrians. This means that Jordan will have to continue to bear the rising costs of the crisis and face the growing challenges on the social and economic fabric,” he added.

It is estimated that there are 1.3 million Syrians in Jordan, half of whom are registered as refugees and the rest were in the Kingdom before the crisis. According to previous government estimates, the cost of hosting refugees during 2011-2015 was $6.6 billion.