With half of the world's refugees residing in urban spaces, it is critical to reflect upon United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees' urban refugee policy in shaping thought processes and approaches to addressing refugee crises accordingly. Since the introduction of its first urban refugee policy in 1997, the organization has introduced follow-up statements and policies that digress from the highly-criticised camp model encouraged in the 1997 document to a more community-based, integrative model between hosts and refugees. This article thus aims to assess to what extent these subsequent policies have been adapted and implemented, namely the 2009 Policy on Refugee Protection and Solutions in Urban Areas, within processes on the ground, and what gaps, if at all, exist between the policy and mission realities. Because the Middle East North Africa region hosts more than 60 per cent of refugees within urban domains, and with numbers rising, in-depth reflection on this region is warranted and will serve as the area of focus within this article. The author uses fieldwork data from Amman to demonstrate that advocacy and actions promoting the community-based model are inevitably contradicted by their implementation within relief model structures that promote temporariness. © Author(s) [2014]. All rights reserved.

Refugees Middle East Urban UNHCR

urban population immigration policy United Nations Amman policy implementation refugee Jordan public space North Africa