Improved Water Management in Rural Jordanian Communities Hosting Refugees

This research set out to examine if participation can improve the management of water resources in rural Jordanian communities. Jordan is second most resource-scare country in the world, and is facing significant increase in demand for water as a result of the arrivals of refugees from the Syrian conflict. The purpose of this work is to delineate the role of participation as a facilitator for improved water management in rural communities in Jordan. This overarching aim was supplemented with two objectives – to examine the factors that influence participation in water management in rural communities hosting refugees and secondly, to examine the applicability the participation of Syrian refugees in water management. Participation was examined through the lens of Integrated Water Resource Management (IWRM) as this is commonly cited as a new ‘global norm’ for water management and has been adopted in Jordan. The basic methodology used and the key research techniques applied in this work were based on the collection of both primary and secondary data. Secondary data consisted of a literature review, and primary data drew on 20 semi-structured interviews with predominantly aid agencies and observations from the field. Secondary data was built into an analytical framework to structure the interpretation of the primary data. Primary data was coded based on the analytical framework and key themes. The major findings were that the key factors influencing participation at the community level include trust, capacity at the grass roots, and preference for consultants and neglect of local knowledge. According to the data collected primarily from the aid agencies, participation of Syrian refugees in community-level water management appears not yet being relevant due to the conditions and thus priorities of the refugees, and the limitations of aid agencies. Both water consumption and awareness about water scarcity are factors that influence participation at both the community-level and for Syrian refugees. The three recommendations of this research include: prioritising awareness and education of the water scarcity issues in Jordan for both Jordanians and Syrians; adopting a participatory approach at the institutional level, and finally, harnessing knowledge about participation from aid agencies. This data represents the views of informants from a particular segment of society and by no means reflects an objective reality. However, it does highlight the perspective from predominately the aid agency segment of the population in Jordan. Future research could investigate the perspective of the refugees themselves to achieve a more objective representation of the situation. (Less)