Increasing The Resilience Of Displaced Persons To Climate Change-Related Water Challenges In Urban Host Settlements In Jordan And Lebanon

Need: The scale and nature of the Syrian crisis and climate change challenges in Mashreq (and MENA) region requires a shift in development approach - a need for better and more effective regional, national and local programming focused on addressing resource scarcity issues in cities exacerbated by both the influx of DPs and climate change impacts.28 For an overview of needs, see annex 1. There is enough evidence that water challenges will likely grow for Irbid, Mafraq and Zah'e in the future due to climate change impacts. There is also a clear link between influx of Syrian DPs and increasing pressure on water resources in these areas. Both challenges are coupled with adaptation challenges in both countries. Common adaptation challenges for the two countries are financial constraints to implement climate action. For example, the financial deficit in the municipality budget for Greater Mafraq has reached 107 percent due to the impact of the influx of Syrian DPs. Also, the lack of awareness at the community level, weak coordination between relevant authorities and need to spend more on research and capacity building to apply low-cost innovative soultions. It can also be observed that there is a city-level knowledge gap needed for sound adaptation interventions at the local and municipal levels. As most DPs live in cities, solutions focused on their needs and negative climate change impacts must target host cities and towns.31 The shift from a focus on camps to cities and towns means changing the paradigm for how humanitarian and development agencies work with DPs. Instead of providing stand-alone solutions to DPs in camps or rural areas, the challenge is to support host communities to adapt / scale up existing services, shelter and jobs to meet the needs of both the original residents and DPs,32 considering the impacts of climate change, especially increasing water challenges, on these services.