Strengthening host regions
Watermanagement in Jordan
Jordan is one of the countries most keenly and directly challenged by Syria’s civil war. By February 2018, approximately 657,700 refugees had crossed into Jordan from Syria according to the United Nations Refugee Agency. The majority of them do not live in refugee camps but have found housing in urban areas. Having to provide basic services to so many people has only served to aggravate the country’s existing problems – take, for example, healthcare, the job market and education.
Water supplies are particularly problematic. As a desert state, Jordan is extremely water poor and the little water it does have is barely sufficient to meet its own people’s needs. The refugees’ arrival has increased demand for supplies of this limited resource. According to the latest calculations, every inhabitant has around 100 cubic metres of renewable groundwater at his or her disposal each year. This is a dramatically low figure. By way of comparison: Germany has twenty times as much. On behalf of Germany's Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ), GIZ supports Jordan to develop solutions for tackling water shortages.