A research project titled “Urban Refugee Dividend: Rethinking Humanitarian Aid as an Urban WASH Investment (JURD)”, was launched Wednesday in Amman.
The study investigates what could be accomplished for refugees and host communities in future displacement crises if resources spent on camps were invested in services and infrastructure in refugee-hosting cities.
The research brings together engineers and social scientists to focus on Jordan’s water and sanitation (WASH) infrastructure, investigating water technologies as well as water access and use.
Led by the International Institute for Environment and Development (IIED), and funded by the British Academy with the support of the Open Society Foundations (OSF), the research project is jointly implemented with the University College London (UCL) and the West Asia-North Africa (WANA) Institute in Jordan.
The research looks into the state of water, sanitation, and hygiene (WASH) services in a refugee camp and a refugee-hosting urban center. It examines the argument that the vast sums of money spent on water and wastewater provision in Jordanian refugee camps since the beginning of the Syrian refugee crisis in 2012 could have been better spent improving the quality and quantity of WASH services available to refugees and host populations in urban centers.
Moreover, the research investigates the potential knock-on effects on health and time (particularly for girls and women) for education, leisure, and livelihoods, if urban water and sanitation systems had been improved.
The goal, according to Dr. Lucy Earle, director of IIED’s Human Settlements Group, is to bring fresh perspectives to policy discussions surrounding refugee hosting in the Middle East and elsewhere so that future refugee crises can be met with solutions that boost the resilience and sustainability of towns and cities.
Dr. Priti Parikh and Dr. Luiza Campos, both Associate Professors at UCL, and Dr. Samer Talozi, a water management expert, presented an overview of the research project and the data collection tools used to understand the current WASH situation at a project launch meeting. They went on to explain the various water and sanitation scenarios that are being investigated.
Representatives from local communities, including Syrian refugees and Jordanian hosts, attended the launch event and shared their experiences with accessing WASH services.
Um Ahmad, a local resident who lives in a house that is not connected to the water or sewer network, described the consequences and difficulties of relying on private water vendors for her water supply, such as unreliability and higher costs, which lead to WASH debt.
“Our ultimate goal is to adopt sustainable WASH solutions not only in camps but also in host communities by bringing new evidence-based knowledge that can support policymakers, technicians, and practitioners in transformation toward sustainability and social cohesion,” said Dr. Majd Al Naber, team leader of WANA’s Sustainable Development team.
“The launching event was successful in bringing together diverse perspectives on the topic of equitable water access and water sanitation and hygiene services in Al Mafraq – a refugee hosting community- and Za’atari refugee camp,” she continued.
Dr. Al Naber added that the research team will conduct key informant interviews with municipal, national, and water supplier representatives in the coming months.
Existing data on WASH provision and costs in camps and cities will be analyzed and supplemented with fieldwork in Dahyait Al Malek Abdullah – Mafraq.
There will be a collection of primary and secondary data, which will be used to develop scenarios illustrating possible affordable, efficient, and equitable enhancements to urban WASH provision.
Source: Jordan News Agency