ReliefWeb

Introduction

Jordan is one of the most water scarce countries in the World. In the past decade, Jordan has shown remarkable progress in ensuring access to wash services, with 4,307,709 people gaining access to safely managed water services from the year 2000 to 2017, while in the same period 3,942,261 gained access to safely managed sanitation services1 .
Unfortunately, these achievements have been offset by low water availability, competing water demands from other water consuming sectors as well as influx of refugees from neighbouring countries.

As of 2021, the challenge remains in terms of providing universal access to water and sanitation services, with access to safely managed water at 93.8% and while only 80.6% had access to safely managed sanitation services 1 .

Since 2011, Jordan alone has provided refuge to more than 1.3 million Syrians, including 664,226 registered refugees, who face increasing vulnerability as their savings, assets and resources are exhausted. 123,359 of these refugees live in camps, while the remaining have settled in urban and rural areas, primarily in northern governorates and in Amman2 .
The impact of Covid-19 threatens to further impact the most vulnerable, both in terms of public health and socioeconomic outcomes.

Since 2013, the Government of Jordan has established a comprehensive national response plan (JRP) to manage and coordinate the response to the Syria crisis. Accordingly, the WASH Sector in Jordan aims to:

• Meet the immediate humanitarian and protection needs of Syrian refugees and Vulnerable Jordanians affected by the Syria crisis.

• Upscale critical capacities of the central, regional and local authorities to plan, program, coordinate and implement responses in a timely, efficient and effective manner.

• Support the resilience of the service delivery system, at the national and local levels, and mitigate the negative impact of the increased pressure on the water and sanitation systems in a cost-effective and sustainable manner.