The World Bank and the UNHCR released a new report entitled The Welfare of Syrian Refugees Evidence from Jordan and Lebanon, co-authored by Paolo Verme, Chiara Gigliarano, Christina Wieser, Kerren Hedlund, Marc Petzoldt, and Marco Santacroce, available for download through the Open Knowledge Repository.
This report is the result of a mainly quantitative joint study by the World Bank and the UNHCR, using survey and registry data about Syrian refugees in Lebanon and Syria, in order to assess their financial and social status, and to evaluate existing policies towards the refugee situation.
The results reveal a complicated situation in which high levels of impoverishment, and financial hardship are not adequately alleviated by existing policies. Taking a longer-term perspective of the potential damage the crisis may cause to the region, the report recommends a framework which takes economic growth of areas with high numbers of refugees as its goal. The study suggests some practical solutions for assisting refugees to prevent the irreversible loss of social and human capital typically associated with prolonged refugee crises.
A PDF copy of the report can be downloaded here. A summary of the report is also available in French, Spanish, and Arabic.