The report presents an up-to-date analysis of gender disparities in Jordan to inform development assistance programs by the USAID for the 2013-2017 strategic plan. The assessment report is prepared by the Global Health Technical Assistance Project;; funded by USAID Jordan and therefore;; it is based on a literature review and field work of the 21 focus group discussions held in Amman;; Irbid;; Tafileh and Zarqa. The report establishes that Jordan has begun to transition to a knowledge-based economy with the national advantage as its people. It also points out that despite the investments that have helped address gender equality issues;; Jordan continues to bear low female participation in the labor markets;; gender stereotypes about the role of females and males and conservative cultural norms. The report includes a sector-by-sector analysis;; recommendations;; gender review and an illustrative implementation plan. It concludes with key recommendations on the wide breadth of the USAID Jordan portfolio with a key emphasis on gender issues.

The study aims to evaluate the concepts of water;; energy and solid waste that exists in the curriculum and the manner in which they are tackled by mapping the current textbooks based the three themes of the study – water;; energy and solid waste. The report is based on a comprehensive study of 104 school textbooks from grades 1 – 10 in fourteen subjects. The survey finds that the environmental education concepts were vastly covered in all subjects of he study in a total of 1777 concepts;; and most of them focused on scientific facts and information with repetitive energy concepts and lack of sequential flow. This research was conducted as part of the Public Action for Water;; Energy and Environment Project (PAP);; which aims to encourage water and energy conservation and to support behavior change towards more conservation and efficient practices both at the household level and in the commercial;; industrial and civil society arenas using social marketing behavioral methods. Based on the finding that there is little space allocated to the synthesis and application of information and knowledge and therefore the concepts remain superficially tackled;; the report recommends that support material should be prepared for the different grade levels and training programs should be developed for the teachers as real agent of change and role models.

This report is a baseline assessment of community-identified vulnerabilities among Syrian refugees living in Amman;; Irbid;; Madaba;; Mufraq;; and Zarqa. The purpose of this report is to identify urban Syrian refugees’ current coping mechanisms and any gaps in services available to Syrian refugees in Jordan. The research methodology is both qualitative and participatory in design;; drawing from the UNHCR tool for Participatory Assessment in Operations. This report presents only the data from household interviews;; baseline assessment;; and the follow-up focus groups conducted with community members. The number of households surveyed was 240;; with a total number of 1;;476 household members and 89 focus group participants representing 534 household members. The report proposed general recommendations and interventions to deal with the main highlighted challenges (cash assistance;; strengthening community links;; vocational training;; physical activities ...etc).

The second phase of the Program Education Reform for the Knowledge Economy Program (ERfKE II) continues to build on the achievements of the first phase and follow the same implementation arrangements that have proven to be successful in (ERfKE I);; and in the same time;; focuses on schools as the locus of change as well as on the need to enhance capacity building at the central and field levels. The development objective of (ERfKE II) is to provide students enrolled in pre-tertiary education institutions in Jordan with increased levels of skills to participate in knowledge economy. Also the Mid-Term review highlighted the concrete progress achieved by (ERfKE II) in several key areas related to policy development;; quality of education interventions and school construction;; and identified the key issues as a summary of the overall progress that will be tackled and addressed during the remaining stage of implementation.