UN Relief & Works Agency (UNRWA):
Palestinian Refugees in Jordan

More than 2.39 million registered Palestine refugees live in Jordan, the largest number of Palestine refugees of all UNWRA fields. Most, but not all, have full citizenship.

About 18 per cent live in the ten recognized Palestine refugee camps throughout the country. In addition to the ten official camps, there are three unofficial camps, and other refugees live near the camps; All of them live under similar socio-economic conditions.

Tens of thousands of Palestine refugees displaced from Syria have sought assistance from UNRWA in Jordan. The majority of them are believed to suffer from abject poverty and live in a precarious legal status. UNRWA is working to accommodate Palestine refugee children displaced from Syria in its schools and to provide relief and health care to those in need.

Jordan UNRWA Camps

Facts and Figures

• 2,390,00 registered Palestine refugees
• 10 official camps
• 169 schools, with 199,047 pupils
• 25 primary health centres
• 14 women’s program centres

Challenges

All programs in Jordan are affected by lack of funding, which limits the number of people UNRWA can support and the number of staff it can employ.

Education

In Jordan, UNRWA runs 169 schools providing basic education from first to tenth grade, for more than 199,000 students. The Agency also trains more than 600 teachers each year at university level. The Amman Training Centre and Wadi Seer Training Centre provide vocational training to more than 1,300 students.

UNRWA students’ results are well above the average, at both school and college level. Most students at the training centre and educational science faculty are female. 

Since 2000, the Agency has supported UNRWA schools in taking more responsibility for their own development and building stronger links with their local communities.

Health

The Agency runs 25 primary health care centres, serving a population of more than 1.9 million. The centres deal with over 1.4 million visits each year. Comprehensive services include:

• dental care
• medical care
• physiotherapy
• environmental health
• pre-, ante- and post-natal care
• disease prevention and control
• health protection and promotion
• reimbursement for hospitalisation and/or advanced diagnostic services.

The program faces difficulties addressing unmet needs including:

• child disabilities
• early detection of cancers
• mental and psychological health.

Relief and social services

The relief and social services program promotes community-based action and delivers relief to families facing particular hardship or small-scale emergencies. The program supports a network of 14 women program centres and community-based rehabilitation centres, which are managed by local committees. 

The department is also computerising the records of registered refugees to integrate data across all Agency programs.

Microcredit

UNRWA runs a micro-credit program which gives loans to Palestinian microentrepreneurs and small businesses, along with consumer and housing loans to low-income households.

The department runs five branches in Amman, Irbid and Zarqa. It has financed more than 140,290 loans valued at about $156.2 million.

Source: UNRWA.