Absorbing the Syrian refugee shock without breaking the peg

The Syrian civil war that began in 2011 delivered the most sustained stress test of Jordan's dollar peg to date, as government figures put the number of Syrians sheltering in the kingdom at over 1.3 million at the peak of the influx, equivalent to roughly 13% of Jordan's population, straining water, electricity, health, and education systems in a country with few natural resources of its own. The Central Bank of Jordan kept the dinar pegged at 0.709 to the dollar throughout, instead leaning on a mix of donor grants, concessional lending, and repeated IMF-supported programs, including a 2012 Stand-By Arrangement, a 2016 Extended Fund Facility, and further programs in 2020 and 2024, to rebuild the reserve buffer the refugee influx and regional trade disruptions had eroded. That approach has paid off in reserve terms: Central Bank of Jordan Governor Adel Al-Sharkas told a banking summit in early 2026 that foreign reserves had climbed to about 28.5 billion dollars, covering more than ten months of imports, while dollarization of the banking system had fallen to 17.6%, evidence the central bank treats as proof that more than a decade of regional shocks has been absorbed without ever forcing a devaluation.