Key changes enabling this approach are an organisational restructuring process creating shared support systems (combining Monitoring and Evaluation – M&E systems, finance and Human Resources – HR) and secondly, longer-term and more flexible funding, where humanitarian proposals include development budget lines and vice versa and pooling of funding.ĬARE Jordan’s Humanitarian Response Model uses a combination of social work tools (information provision, case management), cash assistance and livelihood support (e.g. While considering the specific legal and social situation of each target group and location (urban areas, refugee camps, etc.), CARE Jordan applies a combined, holistic lens of both short- and long-term needs. CARE Jordan’s activities directly reach about 136,000 people and indirectly over 590,000, with a specific focus on women and girls, among Jordanians, Syrian and Iraqi refugees as well as other minority-displaced populations. The majority of Syrian refugees in Jordan live in urban areas and in poverty, over 85 per cent of them below the poverty line and around half of them children. Jordan is one of the countries most affected by this crisis and has the second highest share of refugees compared to its population world-wide – around 89 refugees per 1,000 inhabitants. In 1948, CARE Jordan was established with the arrival of Palestinian refugees and significantly transformed its presence during the Syrian crisis starting in 2011. Meeting the needs of refugees and host communities in Jordan This consists of the following bottom-up guiding principles: localisation, local ownership and participation, evidence-based analysis, politically smart, gender and women’s voices, integrated resilience, adaptive management, pilots with cross-sectoral teams and reinvestment in programme quality.
Together with CARE’s thought leaders, the hub formulated the vision “Doing Nexus Differently”. This hub has been hosted by CARE West Bank and Gaza (WBG) since mid-2017, strengthening regional programming through applied innovation, technical assistance and ground-up thought leadership.īuilding on organisational-wide learning, the hub has become an advocate for the need to implement the nexus in a much more bottom-up, localised and contextualised way in order to protect and empower the impact groups. In co-operation with over 30 global leaders and practitioners, building on evidence coming from research and teams in the field, CARE’s Regional Applied Economic Empowerment Hub in the MENA region has presented key insights and recommendations on the current nexus challenges and opportunities. This article looks at contexts and lessons learnt in Jordan, Palestine and Syria, where CARE has been using the Doing Nexus Differently-approach (see Box below).ĭoing Nexus Differently – an organisational learning process at CARE International in the MENA region and beyond Many of these contexts face high levels of fragility and/or conflict, each with its unique dynamic. As funding mechanisms are changing and major actors are adjusting their ways of working, we continue to call for wider involvement of stakeholders in these processes, especially local NGOs, women’s organisations and private sector stakeholders.ĬARE is currently working in more than twelve countries in the Middle East and North Africa (MENA) region. Advocating for NGO space in the nexus developments, for example, in the discussion of a country strategy among European Union institutions in EU nexus pilots, has been a key point for CARE. But only because CARE views and implements development and peace as bottom-up processes they should ultimately be driven and owned by the affected communities, not by external agendas. Building on CARE’s years-long experience, we argue that humanitarian assistance, development and peace are compatible in many cases. Fuelled by this realisation, the Cooperative for Assistance and Relief Everywhere (CARE) International, a global, dual-mandate organisation providing both humanitarian and development assistance world-wide, has been vocal about the opportunities of more complementary approaches. Since 2015, appeals for crises lasting five years or longer have spiked and now command 80 per cent of the funding received and requested, often in contexts marked by man-made conflicts. This article takes a look at three contexts where CARE has been implementing nexus approaches, namely Jordan, Palestine and Syria.
Based on regional learning, CARE International’s MENA hub has been advocating for a bottom-up approach to more integration between humanitarian, development and peace activities, where analysis, design and implementation are done in very close relation to its impact groups.