Donor funding to support Syrian refugees in Jordan is diminishing and is not nearly enough to cover their needs, a Jordanian minister said on Thursday.
Zeina Toukan, Jordan's Minister for Planning and International Co-operation, said the attention of donors had been "diverted elsewhere" during the pandemic and by the war in Ukraine.
She told an event at the World Economic Forum in Davos that the lack of private funding was straining Jordan's public finances.
Jordan hosts about 760,000 refugees, mainly from Syria, according to the UN's refugee agency. Some are from other countries such as Iraq, Yemen, Sudan or Somalia.
Some hoped the integration of Ukrainian refugees in Europe, generally seen as a success, would be a template to improve the lives of refugees elsewhere. But this has not been the case in Jordan, Ms Toukan said.
"Attention [was] diverted elsewhere when it comes to Syrian refugees. We have seen that especially with diminishing donor support," she said.
"Our response plan is 30 per cent funded, of the actual required needs. This has taken a lot of toll on the economy, on the government budget, to be able to maintain quality services not only to refugees but also to Jordanians.
"We remain open but it cannot be open without certain restrictions, because of high unemployment, and we're struggling to find jobs for Jordanian youth. You need different actors coming together, including the private sector."
Ms Toukan was speaking at a panel on helping refugees into employment, where countries were urged to treat everyone fleeing war the same, regardless of their background.
Labour shortages since the pandemic have prompted some European countries to look at liberalising their immigration laws.
Still, Hassan El Houry, the chairman of Menzies Aviation, said it was not easy for the air industry ― one of the sectors most visibly suffering from a lack of staff ― to recruit refugees.
"The challenge that we have is that airports are a very sensitive part of the infrastructure. Anybody who wants to work at an airport needs to have a very thorough background check," he said.
"For refugees, that's a lot harder because you don't have five years of police records and tax records, and so on and so forth."
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Conflict, drought, famine
Estimates of the number of deaths caused by the famine range from 400,000 to 1 million, according to a document prepared for the UK House of Lords in 2024.
It has been claimed that the policies of the Ethiopian government, which took control after deposing Emperor Haile Selassie in a military-led revolution in 1974, contributed to the scale of the famine.
Dr Miriam Bradley, senior lecturer in humanitarian studies at the University of Manchester, has argued that, by the early 1980s, “several government policies combined to cause, rather than prevent, a famine which lasted from 1983 to 1985. Mengistu’s government imposed Stalinist-model agricultural policies involving forced collectivisation and villagisation [relocation of communities into planned villages].
The West became aware of the catastrophe through a series of BBC News reports by journalist Michael Buerk in October 1984 describing a “biblical famine” and containing graphic images of thousands of people, including children, facing starvation.
Band Aid
Bob Geldof, singer with the Irish rock group The Boomtown Rats, formed Band Aid in response to the horrific images shown in the news broadcasts.
With Midge Ure of the band Ultravox, he wrote the hit charity single Do They Know it’s Christmas in December 1984, featuring a string of high-profile musicians.
Following the single’s success, the idea to stage a rock concert evolved.
Live Aid was a series of simultaneous concerts that took place at Wembley Stadium in London, John F Kennedy Stadium in Philadelphia, the US, and at various other venues across the world.
The combined event was broadcast to an estimated worldwide audience of 1.5 billion.
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What's in the deal?
Agreement aims to boost trade by £25.5bn a year in the long run, compared with a total of £42.6bn in 2024
India will slash levies on medical devices, machinery, cosmetics, soft drinks and lamb.
India will also cut automotive tariffs to 10% under a quota from over 100% currently.
Indian employees in the UK will receive three years exemption from social security payments
India expects 99% of exports to benefit from zero duty, raising opportunities for textiles, marine products, footwear and jewellery
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