Data published by the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) shows that available funding for its operations in Jordan has reached only about $80 million of the $280 million the agency requires for the current year - a funding rate of roughly 29 percent over the first nine months of the year. UNHCR has warned that the widening gap is undermining its ability, and that of its partners, to continue providing essential aid and services to the most vulnerable refugees.
اضافة اعلان
The shortfall comes despite a significant number of Syrian refugees having returned from Jordan to Syria. Approximately 345,000 Syrian refugees remain registered with UNHCR in Jordan, and the agency says that ongoing returns do not eliminate the humanitarian needs of those who remain. UNHCR Jordan spokesperson Yousef Taha said the agency continues to address those needs.
Taha told Al Ghad that the reasons Syrian refugees hesitate to return include security concerns, limited access to basic services, scarce employment opportunities, and uncertainty over housing and property. He said UNHCR's position is that returns must be voluntary, safe, dignified and sustainable, and that the timing of any return must remain a decision made by each refugee family based on its own assessment of its circumstances.
Alongside those concerns, Taha said UNHCR and its humanitarian partners in Jordan are facing an unprecedented challenge as a result of the acute funding shortage. He noted that only 29 percent of the financial requirements for UNHCR's 2026 budget in Jordan has been secured.
He said the shortfall is affecting the capacity of humanitarian organisations to maintain essential assistance and life-saving services for the most vulnerable groups - including cash support, healthcare, protection services and education, as well as assistance directed at children, women, the elderly and people with disabilities.
Taha said Jordan's continued hosting of refugees and its large humanitarian responsibility require sustained international support, and that the country should not be left to bear the burden of displacement alone. He said that just as the Syrian refugee crisis attracted broad international attention and support in its early stages, the current phase is no less important and may in some respects be more sensitive.
He called on the international community not to overlook Jordan and other host countries, and to strengthen support in ways that ensure continued protection and basic services for refugees while preserving the stability and resilience of host communities.
The decline in funding for UNHCR's Jordan operations is part of a wider global funding crisis facing the organisation, which has warned of direct humanitarian consequences for millions of refugees, forcibly displaced persons and stateless people.
UNHCR previously warned in its report 'Eroding Protection: The Humanitarian Cost of Underfunding' that around 8.3 million refugees, forcibly displaced persons and stateless people are at risk of losing vital assistance and services as a result of the severe and sustained funding shortage.
According to the report, support and protection systems for refugees are under increasing pressure, particularly in major displacement crises around the world. Funding constraints have forced UNHCR to cut a number of its core programmes, with direct consequences for the millions of people who depend on them for basic needs and protection.
UNHCR figures illustrate the scale of the decline: funding fell from $5.2 billion in 2024 to $3.9 billion in 2025. By the end of July 2026, UNHCR had received only 32 percent of the $8.5 billion it needs to cover its global operations for the current year, even as the number of people under its mandate and in need of protection has reached record levels.
UNHCR Director of External Relations Dominique Hyde warned that the consequences of underfunding go beyond reductions in the value or reach of assistance, and in some cases threaten the fundamental architecture of the protection system itself.
Hyde said that when registration processes halt, safe houses close, or child protection services disappear, the dangers that refugees and displaced persons originally fled - including violence, exploitation and abuse - begin to follow them to the places where they sought safety.
She added that this traps families in a cycle of vulnerability and may push some people to flee again in search of safety, or leave them more exposed to trafficking.
She said: "Protection services cannot be cut indefinitely without the whole system collapsing." At a certain level of cuts, she said, the problem is no longer one of services reaching fewer people - some services may cease entirely, leaving the most at-risk groups without the protection they need.
In response to the widening funding gaps, UNHCR is also emphasising the importance of what it calls 'flexible funding' - support that allows it to direct resources and expertise to the areas and programmes with the greatest need, and to adapt more quickly as humanitarian needs and priorities shift.
Hyde said this type of funding enables UNHCR teams to deliver essential services and maintain a presence on the ground when crises worsen, and gives the agency the ability to respond to new emergencies without abandoning protracted crises that have faded from international and media attention.
UNHCR is calling on donors and partners to increase support and provide urgent, flexible funding to maintain protection programmes and essential services, help refugees and displaced persons move beyond long-term dependence on humanitarian assistance, and enable them to rebuild their lives with greater stability.
These circumstances leave UNHCR's Jordan operations facing a dual challenge: Syrian refugees continue to return home, but hundreds of thousands remain in Jordan and still require various forms of support and protection - at a time when available funding covers less than a third of the agency's estimated financial needs for the current year.
This article was originally written in Arabic for Al Ghad.
