Program Areas

The USAID program in Jordan supports Jordan’s economic and social reform efforts to become a model for growth and prosperity in the region. To do so, the program follows a tightly integrated approach: economic programs are supported by activities to increase water supplies. These initiatives are complemented by careful attention to the health and education needs of Jordanians, and new efforts to strengthen democracy. Through these activities, USAID is contributing a great deal toward putting Jordan on the path to prosperity and helping it maintain its crucial position as an island of stability.

Focusing our efforts to address the country’s needs, USAID has developed a tightly focused program allowing it to have a profound impact on development and economic growth within Jordan. This program has been developed and will be implemented in close cooperation with the Government of Jordan, Jordanian NGOs and the Jordanian citizens.

Over the next five years, 2004 - 2009, USAID will provide support for the following five areas:

Water Resources Management:

Water scarcity remains the single most critical factor affecting Jordan's chances for sustainable economic growth. The continued availability of sustainable quantities of water is even more problematic when seen in light of Jordan's burgeoning population growth. Annual water demand is projected to increase to 1.3 billion cubic meters by the year 2005, almost double the amount available during the mid-1990s. Long-term solutions are likely to involve a combination of new water supplies and reduced population growth. Over the short-term, the gap can only be narrowed by improved water supply management and increased water use efficiency.

USAID-funded activities in the water sector focus on four main issues:

1. Promote sustainable environmental approaches and policies, through institutional capacity building, and establishment of appropriate monitoring and enforcement initiatives.
   
2. Support optimization of water resources by promoting reuse of reclaimed water, reducing system leakages, increasing efficiency of water use, and implementing effective water-related outreach programs. This includes rehabilitating existing water systems and introducing modern water-use technologies, such as the restructuring and rehabilitation of the Greater Amman water supply system, and the design and construction of a desalination plant and water conveyance system from Wadi Zarqa-Ma’in and Zara Springs to Amman.
   
3. Improve resource allocation, by improving management capabilities and operational efficiency, and eliminating groundwater over-drafting. Furthermore, support is being provided to expand wastewater treatment capacity, such as the expansion of the wastewater treatment plant in Aqaba, and the new public-private partnership Build-Operate-Transfer wastewater treatment plant at As-Samra serving Amman and Zarqa areas. Improvements in wastewater treatment also focus on increasing the amount of water available for municipal, industrial and agricultural use in Jordan.
   
4. Support strengthened water policies and systems, in part by enhancing institutional performance in planning and strategic management, building a comprehensive information platform, and developing an improved policy framework.

Economic Opportunities:

Despite a return to positive economic growth, the condition of the poor and the income gap between the middle-class and the poor has widened. Unemployment remains a persistent concern. Jobs must be created to accommodate at least 45,000 new entrants in the workforce annually. Extending the benefits of economic growth to a wider segment of the population is important in order to gain public support for both the current program of economic reform and the ongoing peace process.

Accordingly, USAID initiated an economic growth program that addresses these concerns, focusing on three main areas:

1. Support deepening private sector participation in the economy, from firm-level assistance and microenterprise development programs that place a special emphasis on women, to youth entrepreneurship training, poverty alleviation and rural development. Additionally, USAID has been providing technical assistance for the Government of Jordan’s effort to establish the Aqaba Special Economic Zone and the Aqaba International Industrial Estate. This promotes Aqaba as an economic growth pole in the south of Jordan, and a regional trade and transportation hub. Furthermore, on-going technical assistance programs include development of business management skills, encouraging e-learning, strengthening of business associations, promoting tourism, and supporting the implementation of the Free Trade Agreement between Jordan and the USA.
   
2. Support a more effective policy and regulatory reform that identifies and implements a range of policies and programs related to trade and market access, investment, financial markets, information technology, e-commerce and e-government, privatization, customs reforms and modernization, and other key private sector policy initiatives.
   
3. Support the GOJ’s efforts for a more transparent, efficient and responsive public sector by creating a customer-oriented public sector, promoting accountability and good governance, and increasing advocacy abilities among private sector and NGOs for a broader participation in public policy formation.

Health Care Services and Population:

Jordan has made impressive gains in improving the health of its citizens. Nonetheless, the country’s ability to sustain these gains is threatened by its population growth. Jordan’s population growth rate has slowed dramatically since the 1970’s, but still, at current rates, the country’s population will double by 2027. Additionally, its public health systems for primary and reproductive health care still need major improvements. Coupled with these challenges are the poor healthy life style practices and the considerable increase in the rate of chronic diseases, especially among the underprivileged, which significantly impacts the resources invested in curative services.

To address these challenges, USAID’s health program focus on three main issues:

1. Support improvements in the access to and quality of health services and information through rehabilitating health facilities across Jordan to make high quality primary health care services more affordable, instituting health protocols and systems, and expanding community outreach.
   
2. Promote healthy life style practices, in part by implementing a national life-stages communication strategy that focuses greatly on youth and people at risk.
   
3. Support the adoption and implementation of better health policies, strategies and management systems to sustain improvements in services. This effort includes improving monitoring systems, expanding health insurance for the poor, and strengthening the accreditation principles.

Education:

A highly educated population is one of Jordan’s most impressive characteristics. The 89 percent literacy rate and 70 percent enrollment in secondary education attest to this fact. However, significant gaps still remain between the skills acquired through education and those required by the job market.

Assisting the GOJ with its Education Reform for the Knowledge Economy (ERfKE) initiative, USAID is embarking on a new initiative to improve the quality and availability of education in Jordan focusing on two main areas:

1. Promote expanding early childhood education, through improvements in the curriculum, training of teachers, and the renovation of facilities.
   
2. Support enhancing secondary school education and developing youth life skills, by enhancing the Management Information Systems educational stream curriculum, training teachers, promoting e-learning, and instituting school-to-work programs to equip youth to successfully participate in a competitive labor market.

Use of information and communications technology (ICT) in training and service delivery plays an integral part in the education initiative.

Good Governance and Civic Participation:

To sustain gains made in economic and social reform, the Government of Jordan recognizes the need to advance political development and strengthen democracy in Jordan. A more effective and accountable system of governance needs to be instituted in Jordan. Furthermore, the low level of civic participation in the decision-making process is still a concern.

To this end, USAID programs focus on two main areas to support national efforts for improving governance, transparency, and civic participation:

1. Support legislative strengthening, through training parliamentarians to enhance their skills in the areas of law-making, budget review, and monitoring of public expenditures. Improving legislative research capacity, enhancing public access to and participation in the legislative process, and enhancing public visibility and credibility of the legislature are also part of this effort.
   
2. Support improved rule of law and justice sector reform to increase the effectiveness and independence of the judiciary. This will include judicial training, improving the transparency of the justice sector, supporting the modernization of Jordan’s court system and case management, and promoting a more competitive judicial environment.

Special attention will be paid within those two areas to liberalize the media, improve the status of women, and increase civic participation. Improving transparency through increasing public accountability and developing a national strategy to combat corruption will also be a key component of USAID’s democracy initiatives.

Cash Transfer:

Complementing these efforts is a multi-year balance of payments program in the form of a cash transfer. This allows Jordan to expand its foreign exchange reserves and reduce its heavy debt burden. The cash transfer program also helps support the process of economic restructuring now underway. Local currency associated with the cash transfer is used to support a variety of priority development activities jointly identified by both USAID and the Government of Jordan. In place since 1997, USAID has provided a total of $809 million through this program.

Cross-Cutting Themes:

In addition, three main cross-cutting themes are integrated into all USAID activities: poverty alleviation, gender equity, and protection of the environment. One tool that is utilized to address these cross-cutting themes, and the portfolio as a whole, is information technology (IT). USAID implements and encourages IT solutions and integration into activities to enhance development.