Jordan Compact Childcare & Transport Support for Syrian Refugee Women Garment Workers

The 2016 Jordan Compact was a trade-for-jobs deal between the EU and Jordan: donors pledged $1.7 billion in financing in exchange for 200,000 jobs for Syrian refugees, with garment factories granted tariff-free EU market access if at least 15% of their workforce was Syrian. Garment factories, which employ large numbers of women, were positioned as a key channel for recruiting Syrian women.

Increase formal employment of Syrian refugees, including women, through trade preferences tied to job quotas, later supplemented with targeted childcare and transport support to remove barriers to women's participation specifically.

The ILO's Better Work Jordan programme provided transport from Zaatari refugee camp to factory buses to address the mobility barrier. In July 2025, the ILO, the Jordan Garments and Textiles Exporters Association (JGATE) and Jordan's Ministry of Social Development, with EU funding, renovated and expanded a nursery in the Al-Dhulayl Industrial Zone.

By the end of 2016 the flagship pilot had recruited only 30 Syrians (Jerash Garments: 22 of 2,800 total staff); only 5% of work permits issued under the Compact went to women, even though women were the intended recruitment target. Surveys found 57% of Syrian refugee women wanted work but were not seeking it, citing long commutes, safety/harassment concerns, husbands' disapproval, wages of about 190 Jordanian dinars a month, and lack of childcare. ILO-provided transport helped place 165 women from Zaatari camp among 347 Syrian refugees hired, contributing to roughly 1,800 garment-sector placements within 2,300 total placements achieved across sectors through eleven ILO employment service centres. The 2025 nursery renovation raised capacity from 32 to 184 children.

An honest illustration that trade-linked job quotas alone do not guarantee gender-equal outcomes: it took years of added, targeted childcare and transport investment to begin correcting a gap the original Compact design left largely unaddressed, and national work-permit data suggests the gap is only partially closed.