{"id":23295,"date":"2016-06-09T14:56:55","date_gmt":"2016-06-09T18:56:55","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/?p=23295"},"modified":"2021-02-03T17:45:27","modified_gmt":"2021-02-03T22:45:27","slug":"student-spotlight-kelberer-pens-article-in-middle-east-report","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/2016\/06\/09\/student-spotlight-kelberer-pens-article-in-middle-east-report\/","title":{"rendered":"Student Spotlight: Kelberer Pens Article"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Jordan1\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Vicky Kelberer,<\/a> MA Candidate at the <\/span>Frederick S. Pardee School of Global Studies at Boston University,<\/span>\u00a0published a recent article\u00a0examining\u00a0the refugee work permit program in Jordan for urban refugees.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Kelberer’s article, entitled “Putting Refugee Work Permits to Work,<\/a>” was published in the\u00a0Spring 2016 issue of the Middle East Report<\/a><\/em>.<\/p>\n

From the text of the article:<\/p>\n

There has now been a major shift in the attitude of Jordan,\u00a0one of the largest host countries of Syrian refugees. In their\u00a0desperation to stem the northward flow of migrants, European\u00a0Union countries made work permits for Syrians a condition of\u00a0Jordan\u2019s aid package at a London donors\u2019 conference in February.\u00a0Acceding to these requirements in return for favorable loan terms\u00a0from the International Monetary Fund, Jordan shocked observers\u00a0by issuing work permits for Syrian refugees in March, a move that\u00a0had previously been considered \u201cnon-negotiable.\u201d<\/p>\n

Jordan hosts more than 640,000 registered Syrian refugees,\u00a0and the government estimates that up to 1.3 million Syrians\u00a0actually live in the country, between unregistered refugees\u00a0and Syrians who were residents before the civil war. The vast
\nmajority\u2014including 85 percent of those registered with the\u00a0UN High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR)\u2014live outside\u00a0camps, primarily in cities, alongside poor Jordanians and\u00a0migrant workers. The new work permit program is intended to\u00a0wean refugees off what little aid exists; throughout the five-year\u00a0Syrian refugee crisis, the UNHCR\u2019s appeal has consistently been\u00a0less than halfway funded. The program is also intended to enable\u00a0Jordan to leverage aid and investment to stabilize a struggling\u00a0economy and bolster domestic markets.<\/p>\n

The influx of Syrians has helped and hurt the Jordanian economy, which had several pre-existing problems, such as high public debt as a percentage of GDP, dependency on foreign aid, and a high exchange rate of the Jordanian dinar. Many Syrian refugees brought significant capital with them at the beginning of the crisis, but much of that is exhausted, and those who own businesses face backlash for perceived crowding-out of Jordanian competitors. The Jordanian economy is projected to grow by 2.7\u00a0percent in 2016, below earlier projections of 3.5\u00a0percent and well below the 5\u00a0percent the government says is necessary to create sufficient jobs to match population growth and reduce unemployment.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Kelberer completed research for the article on a recent trip to Jordan\u00a0during which she\u00a0spent time at the\u00a0Zaatari refugee camp and met with Jordanian officials from the\u00a0Ministry of Education. The trip was\u00a0sponsored by the <\/span>Boston Consortium for Arab Region Studies<\/a>.<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

The article, entitled “Putting Refugee Work Permits to Work,” was published in the Spring 2016 issue of the Middle East Report.<\/i><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":11588,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[8432,8416],"tags":[9287,8885,8436,9068,8549,8626,8721,9567],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23295"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/11588"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=23295"}],"version-history":[{"count":5,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23295\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":23320,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/23295\/revisions\/23320"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=23295"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=23295"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bu.edu\/pardeeschool\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=23295"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}