Jordan

An important International Monetary Fund (IMF) initiative to shore up poor people in the Global South from the worst effects of its own austerity measures and the global economic crisis is in tatters.

Ten years since the first tents were pitched in Za’atari refugee camp in Jordan’s, almost 82,000 Syrian refugees are still living there, facing increasing precarity as shrinking incomes, rising prices and spiralling debt drive them further into poverty.

The 21 billionaires in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA), all of them men, saw their wealth increase by nearly $10 billion since the start of the COVID-19 crisis, almost double the estimated amount required to rebuild Lebanon's shattered capital, while 45 million more people in the region could be pushed to poverty as a result of the pandemic, a new Oxfam report revealed today.

A lack of funding has led the World Food Programme to significantly reduce food vouchers for refugees living outside of camps in Jordan in August, while maintaining the same levels of assistance for camp residents.

Oxfam welcomes the importance placed in Berlin on assisting neighbouring countries, but words alone are not enough.