![]() ![]() In Jordan, the project funded improvements to the business environment to attract investment, with the aim of expanding economic opportunities for Syrian refugees and Jordanians. The IDA project for Lebanon funded the expansion of the school system to ensure all Lebanese and Syrian children had access to education. The first ever such IDA concessional program for middle-income countries. In 2016, The World Bank provided Lebanon and Jordan each with US$100 million from IDA. The concept of “following the people” and providing the targeted aid to whichever host community provided refuge, regardless of their income level, led to a number of unprecedented actions and innovations. One of the most important changes was a shift in perspective to focus on the people in need rather than where they were located. The response required innovation and rewriting the rules on a global scale. There was an acknowledgement that Lebanon and Jordan were providing a global public good and should not be allowed to go into more debt for their generosity. The Lebanon report provided the evidence for a global discussion on how to support middle-income countries hosting large numbers of refuges. Released in late 2013, the report revealed that as a result of the influx of refugees, 170,000 Lebanese had been pushed into poverty and the unemployment rate had doubled, while government expenditures had risen by US$1.1 billion as revenue fell by US$1.5 billion. To ensure the international community understood the full scope of the problem, an assessment of the social and economic impact on Lebanon of the conflict in neighboring Syria was produced in record time. Expanding infrastructure and services required large investments, and Jordan and Lebanon were rapidly going into debt. A number of projects for both Jordan and Lebanon have followed since, focused on expanding health and education services for host communities and refugees, strengthening waste management and the supply of water, improving the reach of social safety nets and creating economic opportunities for all.Ī further complication was that Jordan and Lebanon were middle-income countries, which meant they did not have access to concessional sources of financing. These grants supported the expansion of public services and programs to help improve living conditions for Syrians and Jordanians, and thereby reduce communal tensions and enhance social cohesion. In 2013, a project was launched to provide grants to municipalities in Jordan hosting large numbers of Syrian refugees. This development support was especially urgent to build up the resilience of Jordan and Lebanon to prevent them from succumbing to instability as a result of the shock waves emanating from Syria. This began by recognizing that the refugee crisis that Jordan and Lebanon were facing required an urgent development response to complement the humanitarian operation. “ It was clear the old way of doing things was not up to the challenges the region was facing,” said Ferid Belhaj, World Bank Vice President for the Middle East and North Africa, “ we needed to rewrite the rules.” An alarm was sounded by the international community over a potential “lost generation” of Syrian children, who by missing out on education and the acquisition of skills would struggle to reintegrate into society even after the fighting had ended. The protracted nature of the Syrian conflict meant that simply warehousing refugees posed the risk of significant loss of human capital. This places huge additional demand on all basic services, from waste management to health and education. In MENA, 86% of refugees live in cities and towns. ![]() The shortcomings of the old, traditional approach of governments to forced displacement - of hosting refugees in large camps to wait out the conflict in their countries of origin - were especially apparent in the region. As the world marks World Refugee Day 2019, it is worthwhile to look at how the approach to refugees and the communities hosting them has changed dramatically over the last eight years, and how the World Bank - and the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region - has been at the center of that change. ![]()
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