Jordan to Receive $21.3 million
AMMAN – Responding to a need and increasing its commitment to help those affected by the crisis in Syria, the United States is providing an additional $65 million in humanitarian assistance to the UN World Food Program (WFP), which feeds nearly six million Syrians and refugees from Syria every month.
The announcement, which includes $21.3 million for Jordan, prevents, with immediate effect, the cutting off of all assistance to some 440,000 Syrian refugees living in urban communities, which would otherwise have happened Aug. 1. The funding for Jordan is the highest for any country included in this announcement.
In total, the United States – through the U.S. Agency for International Development’s (USAID) and Office of Food for Peace – has now contributed more than $1.2 billion to WFP for its Syrian operations. This includes more than $530 million for operations inside Syria and more than $693 million for operations benefiting Syrian refugees. The refugee totals are more than $245m for Jordan, more than $311 million for Lebanon, and more than $75m for Turkey.
Since 2013, the WFP voucher program, funded in large part by the United States, has provided critical food assistance to refugees while also contributing approximately $1 billion to the economies of Jordan, Lebanon, Turkey, Egypt, and Iraq. The program has also bolstered local economies and reduced the strain placed on host communities that have generously opened their doors to refugees from Syria.
The United States is the single largest donor of humanitarian assistance to the Syrian crisis, providing more than $4 billion since the start of the conflict, including over $1.4 billion in food assistance, to help millions of people inside Syria and beyond its borders receive food, urgent medical care, and much-needed relief supplies.
