Janneke deBoer

KSP-151

Dr. Dengler

12/9/16

Sustainable Refugee Camps: A Solution to the Current Syrian Refugee Crisis in Jordan
and Lebanon

One of the great humanitarian crises facing the world today is the question of how to deal

with the mass migration of millions of Syrian refugees to neighboring countries because of the

Syrian civil war. This war, which originated in the repression of rebel groups during the Arab

Spring of 2011, has been raging as a full-fledged war since 2012; during this time, near ceaseless

bombing and fighting has resulted in the decimation of entire towns and cities (Syrian Civil

War). Because of the constant danger posed by the war offensives, many Syrians have tried to

escape their homeland in hope of some safety: To date, it is estimated that 4.8 Syrians are

currently living as refugees in other nations (Quick Facts: What You Need to Know about the

Syria Crisis).

The nations bordering Syria are most greatly affected by this exodus of misplaced

civilians, specifically the small counties of Jordan and Lebanon. The extent to which these two

nations have been willing to host those who come to their borders are astounding. Jordan

currently holds approximately 635,324 Syrian refugees, or one-tenth of the nations population

(Quick Facts). In Lebanon, the numbers are even more dramatic: Lebanon currently holds

approximately 1,033,513 Syrian refugees, which amounts to an entire quarter of the nations

native population. The strain that providing refuge and aid such a huge amount of people puts on

the two nations, however, cannot be denied. According to a report by MercyCorps, one of the
leading aid agencies operating with the UN in these countries, the current refugee situation will

end in tragedy if reform is not enacted: As the smallest and least infrastructurally developed

nations in the region, the economic strain that these millions of refugees put on the countries and

aid agencies will eventually cause economic collapse if a change in the approach to hosting

refugees is not transformed (Quick Facts).

A potential solution to the current economic strain caused by refugees is in the self-

sustaining refugee camp. The defining feature of this camp design is that the aid provide within

the camp is meant to facilitate refugee-initiated business and skill-building measures so that they

can subsequently earn the money to gradually support themselves, rather than providing aid

meant only to sustain the refugees. One such initiative, called Refugee Cities, provides a good

explanation of how these self-sustaining camps are to operate: Refugee camps should be

rebadged as cities and turned into enterprise zones so inhabitants can set up businesses and build

their own infrastructure By modelling them on special enterprise zones (SEZs) elsewhere in

the world, they could benefit both the refugee and the host populations, as well as giving

inhabitants useful skills for their eventual return to their homelands (Gibson).

The difference between the insufficient current camp strategy and the proposed improved

aid strategy can be illustrated in the modifying of an age old parable: give a man a fish, and he

have food for a day; give him a fishing pole, however, and he will be able to feed not only

himself but others too. Thus, by setting up camps that provide teaching materials to teachers,

tools to blacksmiths and craftsmen, and seeds to farmers, the refugees will be enabled to provide

build up a livelihood for themselves; an act by which the benefactors will also benefit. Through

the gradual independence of the refugees, the amount of aid necessary by the UN and national
governments will also decrease steadily. When national governments and the UN respond to the

current refugee crisis, they should focus on gradually self-sustaining refugee camp design, as it

provides the best solution towards benefitting both the economic needs of the refugees and the

benefactors (the UN and the national governments of Jordan and Lebanon); needs left unmet by

the work of current refugee camps.

Before addressing the sustainable camp itself, those not in favor of changing how they

currently view refugee aid might challenge, What is wrong with our current refugee camps?

The current refugee camps in Jordan and Lebanon are insufficient in that they do not attract the

people they were meant to aid. Refugee camps are supposed to benefit both the people within the

camp and those outside the camp by providing a given place for aid agencies such as the UN to

keep track of the refugees and to care for their needs. However, the camps do not attract many of

the Syrian refugees flocking to these nations: according to Mercy Corps, The U.N. estimates

that only 1 in 10 Syrian refugees live in camps. The rest are struggling to settle in unfamiliar

urban communities or have been forced into informal rural environments (Quick Facts). Many

of the refugees shun the refugee camps in favor of even cow sheds and abandoned buildings,

simply because the refugee camps do not provide any opportunities of freedom. Because

Jordans camps are run by the government and the U.N. they offer more structure and

support. But many families feel trapped, crowded, and even farther from any sense of home, so

they seek shelter in nearby towns (Quick Facts). Though the refugees seek shelter outside of the

reach of UN aid, they cannot provide for themselves: in both Jordan and Lebanon, it is illegal for

refugees to be employed. As a result, because the refugee camps are unable to attract the people,

the economic burden that should have been shouldered by the UN becomes the burden of local

population in farming villages and towns, who are often little wealthier than the refugees they are
caring for. The current aid camps do not benefit the people within the camps or those living in

the native country, because they do not succeed in attracting the Syrian refugees within their

borders to properly administer aid. Because it is not sufficient in fulfilling its task currently, the

current refugee camp design is in need of improvement and reform.

The sustainable refugee camp would provide an answer to the problems of

ineffectiveness in keeping refugees and alleviating the burden of the refugees on the

infrastructure of the nation left unresolved by current camp design, making them more desirable

for refugees to live there and therefore more able to fulfill the humanitarian issue which refugee

camps were intended to resolve. The features of current refugee camps fail in are in meeting the

emotional and spiritual needs necessary to have quality of life. This camp seeks to fulfill the

entire spectrum of human need, from material to emotional.

He added that Refugee Cities aimed "to provide a model under which host countries can

benefit from refugees' presence; to deliver a financial return for investors; to make

international assistance more effective and self-sustaining; and to provide refugees with

the material, knowledge, and psychological resources to rebuild their home countries

when they are able to return (Gibson).

In this statement, the founder of the organization Refugee Citieswhose mission is to

model enterprise zone-based alternative to the traditional refugee campoutlines the more

wholesome appeal of the self-sustaining camp alternative. Because the alternative camp seeks to

meet the needs of refugees in ways that provide more freedom, they present a more appealing

option to refugees looking for a balance between freedom after escaping such oppression, while

also providing an opportunity to improve themselves while they wait to return to their homeland.
Because the self-sustaining camp is more capable of attracting Syrian refugees to voluntarily live

within its borders than the conventional camp design, it better fulfills purpose of camps to benefit

the host country and the refugees alike.

Upon acknowledging that the current refugee camp system is in need of reform and that

the self-sustaining camp is an improvement, we must then consider whether self-sustaining

refugee camp design, which is currently just a theory, would be possible. Just as Communism,

though theoretically possible, is almost impossible to see brought about in reality because its

theoretical grounds are not based on true assumptions about human nature; so this theory of

sustainable refugee camps would be of no practical value if its operating grounds did not lie in

sound assumptions about the humans that should live in these communities.

One specific question arises when considering the possibility of a self-sustaining

endeavor: do the Syrian refugees actually want to work, rather than waiting for outside aid?

Consider this: it is a known fact that when people are fall from relatively comfortable livelihoods

into life-threatening situations, they desire to labor actively towards improving their situation, as

motivated by natural self-interest and the desire to feel valuable. Many Syrians seeking refuge in

Jordan and Lebanon currently live in extremely dire circumstances. A simple glance at the

statistics on the income of these refugees with confirm the reality of this point: Funding

shortages mean that the most vulnerable Syrian refugees in Lebanon receive just $21.60 per

person a month or around US$0.70 cent a day for food assistance, well below the UNs poverty

line of US$1.90 while 86% of Syrian refugees in urban areas in Jordan are living below the

local poverty line (Syria's Refugee Crisis in Numbers). Living at such a low income means that

the majority of families living in these countries cannot acquire many of even the most basic
necessities for living and require the help of others to even scape by. It follows that while living

as refugees, these Syrians desire nothing more than to be able to work, in order to improve their

living conditions and personal morale.

This conclusion can be supported by the words and actions of refugees themselves. In a

photo documentary of Syrian refugees throughout Jordan, one Syrian refugee who had lost his

home, family, and respected employment had only this comment upon learning he was being

relocated to Michigan: I just hope that its safe and that its a place where they respect science. I

just want to get back to work. I want to be a person again. I dont want the world to think Im

over. Im still here (Syrian Americans). These people want nothing more than to be able to

improve their current situation of helplessness and earn their place in the world. Therefore,

because these Syrian refugees do actually want to workthus, meeting the prerequisite

necessary for the operation of a self-sustaining refugee campit should be entirely possible to

implement of this revised camp design principle in real-life camp situations in Jordan and

Lebanon.

However, critic and supporter alike realize that even if self-sustaining camps are possible

in that they contain refugees willing to do the work necessary, the reformed self-sustaining camp

design itself would be economically useless and therefore inexpedient it is incapable of

generating a healthy and profitable economy. It is necessary that the refugee camps be able to

use the aid agency-funded investments of entrepreneurial materials to grow into businesses and

workshops that are profitable economically, otherwise the refugees will be just as reliant on the

support of the UN for daily provisions as they are in the current camp system. To see the

economic worth these refugees are easily capable of generated when supplied with resources, we
need to look no further than the Zaatari Refugee Camp in Jordan--the largest refugee camp in

Jordanfor an example of the capability of these refugees (Quick Facts). In a report by Al

Jazeera, it was revealed that even in a camp unconducive to business startup or development, the

refugees have managed to generate an incredible economy. Zaatari is home to about 2,500

unauthorized shops, and according to the UNHCR, the camp's economy generates about 10

million Jordanian dinars ($14.2m) a month (Syrians at Zaatari Camp: 'We Can't Live Here

Forever'). Because many of the people coming into the camps are educated middle-class people

who had marketable skills, they are easily able to adapt to new circumstances and build up

businesses, even when unauthorized and unencouraged. Gavin White, the UNHCR Jordan

External Relations Officer, says of the value of the resourceful people in Zaatari: Its too

dangerous to return to Syria, and there are very limited ways to be productive inside the camp.

But the adaptations have been amazing. This is unlike any other refugee camp in the world. The

Syrians are coming from a middle-class economy, so they are a very skilled population they

arent subsistence farmers. Theyve managed to build an economy inside the camp (Zaatari

Refugee Camp). These are the people that currently fill the countries of Jordan and Lebanon:

highly skilled people willing not only to do work, but work that has value in local and

international markets. If the UN and national governments would work together in allowing

these skilled refugees to put to good use their skills by encouraging enterprise within the camps,

rather than repressing the abilities and talents of these people, how much more productive and

economically valuable could they as a community be?

While the benefits of could be expounded upon at much greater lengths, the given proofs

that self-sustaining camps would better fulfill the calling of a refugee camp, because they more

successfully attract the refugees to live in the camps; that the self-sustaining camp would be
realistically possible, because the working will of the refugees within the camp meets the

prerequisite necessary for being sustainable; and that the self-sustaining camp would be

economically expedient to both the refugee and the benefactor, as the current profits being made

in even conventional camps illustrate the ability of the refugees to build up an economy

successfully. The UN and the National governments of Jordan and Lebanon should unite their

efforts to respond to the Syrian refugee crisis by developing and instituting these havens of

enterprise, or self-sustaining camps, in order to gradually relieve the economic burden the

refugee crisis currently presents to both the national governments and the UN by allowing the

Syrian refugees to earn the necessary food and shelter themselves.

Gibson, Eleanor. "Humanitarian Experts Propose Turning Refugee Camps into Enterprise Zones

Called "Refugee Cities"" Dezeen. N.p., 2016. Web. 11 Dec. 2016.

"Quick Facts: What You Need to Know about the Syria Crisis." Mercy Corps. N.p., 9 Dec. 2016.
Web. 9 Dec. 2016.

"Syrian Americans." Humans of New York. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2016.

"Syrian Civil War." Encyclopedia Britannica Online. Encyclopedia Britannica, n.d. Web. 11

Dec. 2016.

"Syrians at Zaatari Camp: 'We Can't Live Here Forever'" Syrians at Zaatari Camp: 'We Can't

Live Here Forever' - Al Jazeera English. Al Jazeera, n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2016.

"Syria's Refugee Crisis in Numbers." Syria's Refugee Crisis in Numbers. Amnesty International,

n.d. Web. 11 Dec. 2016

"Zaatari Refugee Camp." Humans of New York. N.p., n.d. Web. 9 Dec. 2016.