Joint Assessment Review of the Syrian Refugee Response in Jordan

As the conflict in Syria approaches the three-year mark, there is an increasing realization within the international community that this is a protracted crisis and that the refugees will remain for an extended period of time. Over the past few months, international financial institutions, the Government of Jordan (GoJ), UN agencies and NGO partners have made a significant push to alleviate pressures on services and infrastructure and intervene in support of host communities, whilst at the same time maintaining the protection space for Syrian refugees. The immediate humanitarian efforts should be sustained by long- term
strategies in order to create a much-needed bridge between emergency and recovery within the current response. This will include bringing the expertise of other development partners into the response mechanism. UNHCR, UNICEF and WFP, along with other international and national partners from the Jordanian humanitarian community, are on the front-line of the refugee response and are very much aware of its impact on host communities. These agencies also have an unparalleled wealth of information on the humanitarian response and conditions in urban areas. This information needs to be analyzed and incorporated into development plans in order to understand the progress made and ensure an effective
transition to a long-term strategy.

The objective of the Joint Assessment Review is to analyze this information and highlight broad trends in order to inform more effective programming within the refugee/humanitarian sphere. It provides recommendations on the key elements that should go into building a long-term strategy. The analysis is based on a review of over 130 surveys and assessments undertaken by the GoJ, UN agencies, NGO partners and development actors in 2013 (Figure 1 and Table 1). For each sectoral analysis, graphs and maps on the type of data used are provided in the Annex.