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10 Years into Exile : A Shock on Top of a Crisis (2020 Annual Assessment Report) - January 2021

Pays
Jordanie
+ 4
Sources
CARE
Date de publication

Introduction

The 2020 Annual Assessment is the ninth in a research series begun in 2012. CARE Jordan uses the assessment to identify, analyze, and track the needs, vulnerabilities and coping mechanisms of refugees and host communities in Jordan. The assessments have been carried out annually to support humanitarian and development actors and other key stakeholders in building a better response that addresses the needs of the most vulnerable populations in Jordan.

The previous Annual Assessments exclusively focused on urban areas; 2020 is the first year that refugees living in Azraq Camp were included in the research. Azraq Camp is home to approximately one-third (33.5%) of Jordan’s camp-based refugees (see box on page 4).

Five key themes structure this 2020 Annual Assessment: social protection, sustainable livelihoods, gender equality, education and durable solutions. The COVID-19 pandemic forced countries around the world into a difficult fight against the virus and its repercussions, with policies to limit the transmission of the virus being introduced. The effect of COVID-19 on refugees and vulnerable host communities was examined as a cross cutting theme in the current assessment.

Four groups were targeted by the assessment; Jordanians, Syrian refugees, Iraqi refugees, and refugees of “other” nationalities. According to data from the UN Refugee Agency (UNHCR), 88% of registered refugees in Jordan are Syrian, 9% are Iraqi, and the remaining 3% belong to other nationalities (including Yemini, Somali, and Sudanese refugees).

Assessment participants were sampled across the following locations where CARE operates extensively:
Amman, Azraq town, Azraq Camp, Irbid, Mafraq and Zarqa (noting that CARE Jordan operates in all these areas).

Primary data for the assessment was collected from 11 Key Informant Interviews (KIIs), 39 gender and age disaggregated Focus Group Discussions (FGDs), six indepth case studies, and a quantitative survey of 2,774 individuals. This is a representative random sample of the population registered in CARE Jordan’s database of over 600,000 records. Jordanian respondents correspond to established criteria for vulnerability, as determined by the Ministry of Social Development.

The COVID-19 pandemic is compounding protection concerns and exposing vulnerable populations to new threats: an increase in violence, including what has been described as a “shadow pandemic” of GenderBased Violence (GBV), and challenges in access to health, food, water, education and legal services for vulnerable and marginalized groups and a deterioration in mental health.

There has also been a decrease in livelihood opportunities and income—a particular protection concern where average household incomes have decreased while monthly expenditures increased—strongly associated with the impacts of the pandemic on livelihoods, and which is exacerbating negative coping mechanisms.
In the face of the economic shock our world is experiencing, some of the most vulnerable communities are now forced to resort to adverse survival strategies, with limited safe alternatives.