VZCZCXRO1163
PP RUEHBC RUEHDA RUEHDE RUEHIHL RUEHKUK
DE RUEHAM #0894/01 1060553
ZNR UUUUU ZZH
P 160553Z APR 09
FM AMEMBASSY AMMAN
TO RUEHC/SECSTATE WASHDC PRIORITY 4878
INFO RUCNRAQ/IRAQ COLLECTIVE PRIORITY

UNCLAS SECTION 01 OF 02 AMMAN 000894 
 
SENSITIVE 
SIPDIS 
 
DEPARTMENT FOR NEA/ELA; GENEVA FOR RMA 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
TAGS: PREF PHUM EAID AORC JO
SUBJECT: JORDAN--UNHCR LOOKS AT NEW WAYS TO MONITOR 
ASSISTANCE 
 
 ¶1.  (SBU) Summary:  UNHCR-Jordan recently changed the 
composition of its monitoring and evaluation teams to include 
staff from both its protection and program offices.  UNHCR 
invited the Refugee  Coordinator for assistance to 
participate on March 30, in the first deployment of the newly 
constituted teams as they evaluated  a partner NGO's 
provision of health care through a clinic  in Zarqa, Jordan's 
second-largest city and practically a  suburb of Amman.  As 
part of the exercise, UNHCR visited the homes of randomly 
selected health care beneficiaries to determine their 
satisfaction with services and to collect information about 
vulnerability.  The home visits illustrated the challenges of 
establishing a refugee's eligibility for humanitarian 
assistance.  End Summary. 
 
Monitoring and Evaluation 
------------------------- 
 
¶2.  (SBU) UNHCR-Jordan recently changed the composition of 
its monitoring and evaluation (M&E) teams to include staff 
from both its protection and program offices.  This change in 
team composition was designed to give a service-based 
dimension to the monitoring of NGOs that implement UNHCR 
programming.  Until recently, only program staff conducted 
M&E concentrating on financial responsibility and adherence 
to targets and guidelines.  The inclusion of protection staff 
is meant to bring a more beneficiary-centered approach to the 
evaluation process. 
 
¶3.  (SBU) UNHCR invited the U.S. Refugee Coordinator for 
assistance to participate on March 30, in the first 
deployment of the newly constituted teams as they evaluated 
CARITAS-Jordan's provision of health care through a clinic in 
Zarqa, Jordan's second-largest city and practically a suburb 
of Amman.  The monitoring trip was meant to showcase 
UNHCR-Jordan's new concept of multi-disciplinary monitoring. 
The team visiting these two families was made up of one UNHCR 
staff member, RefCoord, and the representative from the 
European Commission humanitarian assistance organizations, 
ECHO.  As part of the exercise, UNHCR visited the homes of 
two randomly selected health care beneficiaries to determine 
their satisfaction with services and to collect information 
about vulnerability. 
 
¶4.  (SBU) The first visit was to the home of Nadia, who lived 
with her family in a two-room apartment inside a larger 
complex near a busy commercial district in the working class 
suburb of Zarqa.  Her mother suffered from heart disease, 
hypertension, and a persistent upper respiratory infection 
she attributed to their dank, poorly heated apartment.  Nadia 
arrived in Jordan with her mother and late father in 1996 
from Iraq to seek medical assistance for her father.  She met 
and married her Jordanian husband and made a life for the 
family in Zarqa.  Both of their children were born in Jordan. 
 When Nadia's father died in 2005, she returned to Iraq and 
sold all their possessions before returning to Jordan.  In 
late 2006 Nadia and her mother registered with UNHCR to 
receive assistance.  Nadia qualified as vulnerable and 
benefits from UNHCR cash assistance programs in Jordan.  (She 
did not tell UNHCR that her husband was Jordanian, and so 
probably qualified as a single woman head of household.) 
The family lived 
off of Nadia's assistance and the father's salary from his 
job as a laborer.  When asked about future plans, Nadia and 
her mother both said they would remain in Jordan.  They had 
no wish to return to Iraq, and no desire to seek resettlement 
in a third country. 
 
¶5.  (SBU) The second visit was to the home of Hussein, who 
fled Baghdad, where he worked as a taxi driver, in 2003.   He 
lives together with his wife and child in Zarqa in a two room 
basement apartment whose entrance was filled standing water 
and rooms smelled of mildew.  His wife works illegally as a 
cleaner and their 9-year-old daughter attends public school 
where she is the only Iraqi girl in her class.  To make extra 
money, Hussein worked in the home for a local merchant 
folding and packaging diapers for sale in the nearby shops. 
Hussein said that his whole family fled Iraqi after his 
sister died from burns suffered in a bombing in their Baghdad 
neighborhood.  His closest living relatives were refugees in 
Syria.   His daughter sat on the floor of the bedroom/sitting 
room as Hussein talked to the monitoring team wheezing she 
breathed.  Hussein explained that since coming to Jordan the 
girl suffered from seizures and was taking medication for 
epilepsy.  Doctors had ordered a CAT scan for the girl, but 
the 
45 JD (60 USD) test was slightly above the cost threshold 
allowed under UNHCR guidelines and had to be approved by the 
healthcare provider.  UNHCR had rejected Hussein's 
 
AMMAN 00000894  002 OF 002 
 
 
application for cash assistance.  Hussein said his only hope 
for the future was resettlement.  His family had all fled or 
died and he would not return to Iraq. 
 
¶6.  (SBU) Comment:  UNHCR will investigate these two cases to 
determine if protection staff should take action in either 
case illustrated above.  It would be injudicious to condemn 
UNHCR procedures on the strength of one home visit.  However, 
the cases presented here highlight the challenges of 
determining and keeping track of need among refugees.  It is 
important that the home visit and vulnerability assessment 
system be controlled, and double checked to ensure that tough 
decisions are made about who deserves assistance and who 
might have other means to support themselves.  End Comment. 
 
Visit Embassy Amman's website at 
http://www.state.sgov.gov/p/nea/amman/ 
Brown