From Resilience to Growth: Realizing Jordan’s Development Vision
The purpose of this document is to inform the vision that many have for Jordan - to plot a path from resilience to growth- with the experiences and lessons DAI has accrued during its two decades of implementing donor-funded programs in Jordan. This report is intended as a survey of DAI’s lessons learned and,more broadly,an invitation to draw from these experiences to enrich the design of new programs. An August 216 report published by Jordan’s Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation (MOPIC) estimates that the country has borne an additional $6.6 billion in direct costs—in healthcare,education,transport,and municipal services—since the beginning of the Syrian refugee crisis in 211. Both the scope and exigency of these challenges gave rise to the Jordan Compact,an innovative development approach to not only cushion the impact of the Syria crisis,but also view it as an opportunity for more comprehensive planning,more coordinated funding,and—crucially—more ambitious interventions aimed at creating exponentially more investment and jobs. Recognizing that monetary assistance alone cannot adequately address these and other issues,the Compact details specific macroeconomic interventions meant to stimulate growth in the Jordanian economy,creating jobs for Jordanian communities and for the hundreds of thousands of displaced Syrians they host—a population that,in the mid- to long-term,may need to be assimilated. Taken together,these interventions aim to manage Jordan’s substantial development needs while adding value to the Jordanian government’s long-term vision for economic growth.