Building climate-resilient livelihoods for refugees and host communities in Jordan

The World Food Programme (WFP) has requested researchers from the CGIAR Research Initiative on Fragility, Conflict, and Migration (FCM) to investigate which financing options could enable refugees and host communities to invest in climate-resilient, sustainable livelihoods. The result is a series of research-backed recommendations set to inform future WFP projects. 

Climate change impacts and legal barriers are equally challenging to refugees trying to eke out a living in Jordan’s agricultural sector. As one refugee explained to FCM researchers, he knows from his past life in Syria that greenhouses can protect crops against changing temperatures and ensure efficient use of water, but he is not able to invest in any: 

“I can’t get the licenses to be independent in my project,” he stated. “I need to sign a contract with a Jordanian partner first. I cannot just go to the bank and take a loan to invest it in a big project and do business.” 

This farmer is but one of many Syrians who have fled to Jordan during the past 15 years; in fact, Jordan hosts the second-largest number of refugees per capita worldwide. Now, water scarcity, droughts, and flash floods pose serious threats to the lives and livelihoods of both Syrian refugees and their Jordanian hosts.  

To better support both refugees and host communities to tackle climate change impacts, the World Food Programme (WFP) in mid-2024 contracted researchers from the CGIAR Research Initiative on Fragility, Conflict, and Migration (FCM)  to investigate what new investments in climate-resilient agricultural livelihoods could look like and which financial and legal barriers stand in the way. 

The result is a series of recommendations for how WFP, together with national and microfinance institutions, could best design financing products to meet the interests and needs of agricultural communities in northern Jordan. These recommendations form an integral part of a proposed WFP flagship project, currently pending submission to the Green Climate Fund. 

Research identifies challenges and needs 

While WFP provides food and cash-based assistance to vulnerable refugees in northern Jordan, the organization also seeks to support those who can and want to seek out climate-resilient agriculture as a path to economic self-reliance.  

Tasked with figuring out how this support could best be designed, FCM researchers found that refugees are already firmly integrated into agricultural livelihoods and that they are interested in investing in more climate-resilient production technologies, particularly greenhouses. However, they face restrictive legal and financial barriers—around work permits, land ownership, and credit options—that prevent them from making such investments.  

“The study that FCM has carried out is really critical for us to utilize in our application to the Green Climate Fund because it demonstrates that we’ve done the research and do know what conditions exist in northern Jordan. It backs up the design of our proposed flagship project,” said Corey Fortin, climate and disaster risk reduction team leader at WFP. 

WFP’s upcoming flagship project is intended to, pending submission to the Green Climate Fund, target both refugees and host communities in northern Jordan, increasing their access to the finance they would need to invest in adaptation measures and new technologies. 

“What we learned from these interviews has led us to conclude that developing financing products and financial delivery mechanisms that match the socio-cultural, economic, and demographic characteristics of refugee populations would both help improve the resilience of refugees and also improve the overall climate resilience of Jordan’s agri-food systems,” added Frans Schapendonk, CGIAR climate security specialist contributing to FCM. 

To reach these conclusions, FCM researchers interviewed 120 refugees and host community members in Irbid and Mafraq Governorates, both of which depend on agriculture, are highly vulnerable to climate change impacts, and host large numbers of refugees. The interviews were complemented by focus group discussions, a survey, and a literature review. The full study is set to be published in the coming months. 

A community-based approach for social cohesion 

Another central question that WFP asked FCM to answer is how a program designed to foster investments in climate-resilient agricultural livelihoods could also contribute to social cohesion within and between host and refugee communities. 

“I’ve heard Jordanians say that they also have farmers who are very vulnerable to climate change,” explained Fortin. “In other words, when there are programs giving grants only to refugees, that has the potential to create discontent. That’s why we want to look at the requirements for a model where all members of the agricultural community feel that that they’re being supported.” 

WFP’s interest in designing projects to benefit everyone equally was first sparked by FCM research published in 2023: “One of the findings in their earlier studies was about the need for community-based approaches, and that’s what led me to wanting to learn more,” added Fortin.  

Interviewing refugees, migrant workers, and host communities in Jordan in 2023, FCM researchers indeed found that while tensions do exist, they are often exacerbated by perceptions that support is unfairly distributed between host and refugee communities. Instead, comprehensive community- and area-based approaches that more effectively link emergency response and sustainable development efforts can aid both refugee and host communities as well as build social cohesion between the two groups. 

That’s why FCM researchers recommend that WFP design its projects to foster collaboration and co-dependency between refugees and host communities. This approach can generate benefits for both groups, while at the same time overturn the perception that refugees are over supported.  

“Because Syrians are generally perceived to be on the forefront of agricultural innovation and have substantial experience in primary production, there is an opportunity to promote cross-cultural learning through Syrian–Jordanian partnerships and for refugees to transfer their know-how to fellow community members, thereby benefitting the whole production system,” said Schapendonk. 

Developing financing products for refugees 

In addition to interviewing refugees and host communities, FCM researchers also spoke with 19 experts representing the supply side of the financial landscape within Jordan. These conversations indicated that while microfinance organizations are issuing loans to some refugees, their interest in extending more forms of credit to this demographic hinges on the removal of legal barriers and on refugees having access to better business opportunities and training on for example business development and financial literacy. 

To validate and share these findings, FCM and WFP in October 2024 brought together representatives from the private sector, national and microfinance institutions, and humanitarian and development assistance organizations for a workshop in Amman. 

“What stood out during our discussion is that we need some innovation in the development of financing products,” said Fortin. “We have two sides with wants that don’t always align—for example, refugees would prefer zero percent interest rates, which is difficult for financial institutions to provide. This is exactly where a development partner such as WFP can step in to create a project that helps bridge that gap.” 

Building on the recommendations offered by FCM’s study, participants identified additional opportunities for how finance and microfinance actors could better serve refugees, including by  

• developing a uniform micro accreditation tool to identify credit-worthy beneficiaries, given that most refugees do not have a conventional credit history, 

• creating a scorecard, consisting of key benchmarks, to further aid in defining potential beneficiaries’ eligibility, 

• integrate climatic data and projections into their business planning, implementation, and monitoring so that any business development support offered to refugees can be sensitive to evolving climate trends.  

For now, WFP is set to use FCM’s recommendations to provide more targeted support for refugees and host communities in northern Jordan, enabling them to access the finance they need to invest in sustainable, climate-resilient agricultural livelihoods.  

Authors: Marianne Gadeberg, Independent Communications Consultant; with contributions from Frans Schapendonk and Tina Jaskolski, Alliance of Bioversity International and CIAT  | Photo Credit: Marcel Crozet / ILO 

This work was carried out with support from the CGIAR Initiative on Fragility, Conflict, and Migration (FCM). We would like to thank the World Food Programme for their support as well as all funders who supported this research through their contributions to the CGIAR Trust Fund: https://www.cgiar.org/funders/