Fakhoury chairs meetings on planned development programmes

AMMAN — Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Imad Fakhoury on Monday chaired the first meeting of the coordinating committee of the Kingdom’s 2016-2018 executive development programme, a ministry statement said.

The Council of Ministers endorsed the programme, which forms the first phase of implementation of the Jordan 2025 economic blueprint, earlier this month.

The 2016-2018 programme includes all 26 economic and social sectors, 578 performance indicators, and 340 initiatives, as well as projects and legislation linked to the Jordan 2025 document, according to the statement.

“We have been keen right from the beginning to adopt the participatory approach in preparation to ensure the involvement of all concerned parties,” the statement quoted Fakhoury as saying.

The minister said the programme is flexible and will be reviewed annually as needed, as well as in light of the results of the population census.

“We have also been eager to streamline gender issues and to make them relevant to the programme by coordinating with the Jordanian National Commission for Women, which reviewed the sectoral drafts of the programme,” he added.

Fakhoury explained that the committee will coordinate with the Public Budget Department to identify key projects not funded in the public budget, which will be the top priorities in government discussions with foreign partners to obtain either grants or soft loans, the statement said.

He noted that a package of projects in major sectors has been identified for public-private implementation.

Also on Monday, the minister chaired the meeting of the national team in charge of preparing 2016-2018 governorate development programmes, held to coordinate and agree on a national agenda to carry out decisions and recommendations relevant to those programmes, according to a second ministry statement. 

Fakhoury said his ministry and the Interior Ministry are working as one team on the programmes.

“We have already covered $1.3 billion in the next three years from the priorities arranged by the different ministries... according to the visits that we already made to all governorates. There is a funding gap of $825 million over the next three years,” he added. 

Fakhoury said the ministry is coordinating with USAID on priorities in the governorate development programmes for 2016-2018, to reach an agreement on what the agency could contribute, according to the statement.