Report evaluates decade of EU-Jordanian cooperation
Jordan Times - 28/06/2007
Report evaluates decade of EU-Jordanian cooperation
(MENAFN - Jordan Times) AMMAN - Ten years of mutual cooperation between Jordan and the European Union have passed with success in certain fields and disappointing results in others, according to an EU evaluation report released on Wednesday.
The report was prepared by independent experts who spent around nine months interviewing tens of officials from the private and public sectors, in order to come up with a clear understanding of the levels of success or failure in cooperation.
It noted that Jordan is considered the third highest recipient of aid from the EU in the region after Palestine and Lebanon.
The Kingdom has received 571 million euros worth of aid since the association agreement was signed in 1997.
The past decade has witnessed a plethora of success stories on development and aid programmes due to "the transparent policy of the European Commission (EC) and its neutral political profile," said the report, made available to The Jordan Times.
Commending the Kingdom’s progress in social and economic fields, the report noted that poverty has been reduced.
It also highlighted the chronic obstacles facing Jordan’s economy, among them its water shortage.
The government, burdened with a heavy budget deficit due to ever-increasing oil prices, is facing difficulties in coming up with long-term solutions to water problems.
Only recently a tender was floated to extract water from the southern aquifer in Disi to provide the Kingdom with badly needed drinking water.
Figures from various international organisations, including the World Bank, the UN and other independent figures, indicate that the average Jordanian uses about 100 litres of water a day, while on the other side of the border, the average Israeli consumes 900 litres a day - the same as an average US citizen - and Europeans an average daily 250 litres.
The EU has worked with governmental and nongovernmental organisations on several projects to improve water management in main cities as well as rural areas.
Despite the numerous success stories in water management and human resources development, the Kingdom’s benefit from EU programmes laid down in the Barcelona process were dismal in certain fields, mainly the trade sector, according to the report.
It noted that the policy development process faced difficulties in the transfer of EU responsibilities to Jordanian institutions.
"A pending question is how to maintain the acquired knowledge and some institutional memory during a long time after transfer," said the report.
Thanks to the bilateral trade agreement, Jordanian products gained access to the EU market free of tariffs and quotas, but the end result was not as good as was hoped for, the report added.
"Jordanian exports to the EU are well-diversified but slow growing in comparison to other markets and no breakthrough has been observed in the supported exports to the EU," added the report.
