Collateral Repair Podcast

Season 2 (2024): Episode 4, “Refugees and Jordan’s Economy with Shaddin al-Masri.” To survive in today’s world, you need money. And to make money, you need a job. But this is not a simple proposition for Jordan’s 700,000 refugees, the majority of whom face exclusion from Jordan’s formal economy.

In this episode, we talk to Shaddin al-Masri, a PhD student at Danube University Krems whose research focuses on nationality-based discrimination in humanitarian aid and labor market integration for refugees. We break down Jordan’s kafala sponsorship system, its uneasy relationship with refugees, and certain initiatives that have created limited paths for refugees to work.

Given the academic nature of this episode, we hope the reading list below will help you get caught up to speed.

Background reading:

• The basic framework governing foreign labor in Jordan is the kafala system. But what is the kafala system, a private sponsorship structure predominant in the Arab world?

• Around 2016, visits from academics and donors spurred conversations around economic self-reliance for Syrians in Jordan. These conversations created groundbreaking, if fragile, employment schemes for Syrians. 

• But this 2016 ‘compact’ only served Syrians and left other refugees in the dark. Shaddin wrote more about it here. 

• Nowadays, limited entrepreneurship, cash-for-work, and volunteering programs provide refugees with economic lifelines — but for how long?