Better responses to climate change risks through improved vulnerability assessments
Challenge
Jordan, a climate hotspot, hosts over 750,000 refugees. Every two years, UNHCR conducts a study to analyse and document different types of vulnerabilities across multiple sectors, from a representative sample of registered refugees. But this vulnerability assessment framework (VAF) does not include any indicator measuring climate change impacts on refugees.
Solution
Integrate indicators into the UNHCR VAF on how climate change affects refugees in Jordan, to gather quality data that would inform the programming of UNHCR and its partners over the years to come.
Impact
Improved understanding of climate change impacts on the displaced in Jordan, driving better climate change related protection interventions and enhanced resilience of refugees to climate change related risks.
Project impact
Other information
UNHCR Jordan had no systematic way to measure how climate change affects refugees at the household level, despite growing exposure to heat, floods, storms, and water scarcity. Funded by the Data Innovation Fund and developed with ISDC, this project produced the first ever Climate Vulnerability Index (CVI) for refugees, integrated into the 2024 Vulnerability Assessment Framework, Jordan's most authoritative source on refugee conditions, jointly used with the World Bank and WFP. The CVI combines exposure, sensitivity and adaptive capacity, and uses pioneering behavioural science questions to capture risk and time preferences, revealing that 40% of refugees face concerning climate vulnerability and that refugees in Zaatari and Azraq camps are systematically more exposed than those in host communities. The methodology is open, replicable and ready to be applied to Jordanians and other displacement contexts globally, providing UNHCR with a powerful new tool for targeting, anticipatory action and impact evaluation in a warming world. Read more about this project in our webstory.