According to data from the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR), Jordan is the 3rd largest host country for Syrian refugees, after Turkey and Lebanon. Of the 760,000 refugees and asylum seekers registered by UNHCR in Jordan, approximately 660,000 are from Syria. With an unemployment rate of 23% in Jordan, many refugees, despite having a work permit, face difficulties in finding a job and supporting their families. The incidence of poverty is higher among all refugee populations but is above 75% for Syrians. These difficulties are accentuated for women, who constitute more than half of the refugee population and who suffer gender-based discrimination and violence.

Despite the fact that non-nationals are not officially included in the national social protection strategy (implemented by the Jordanian Ministry of Social Development (MoSD), a pragmatic approach of the local administration prevails in providing non-nationals with social services. In fact, the Local Community Development Centres (LCDCs), under the supervision of the local directorates of the MoSD, adopt an approach based on the needs of all local populations ("nationals" and "non-nationals"), without discrimination in access to their services.

In this context, Expertise France, with the support of the French Development Agency, are willing to support the Ministry of Social Development in reducing inequalities in access to social services between women and men through the pilot and the implementation of social services for vulnerable populations (both national and non-national), relying on Local Community Development Centres (LCDC) in the governorates of Karak and Jarash and in East Amman.

The main objective of the proposed project would be to improve gender equality and social inclusion of women and men, national and non-national, through the strengthening of the MoSD at the central and the local level, working with the Local Community Development Centers (LCDC). It is proposed for the project to focus on Karak, Jarash and East Amman.

More specifically, the current project aims at:

(1) Developing sustainable, inclusive and adapted social services in the LCDCs, in collaboration with local Civil Society Organisations, in order to strengthen social cohesion and gender equality;

(2) Strengthening the network of LCDCs by ensuring that their premises are functional and sufficiently equipped to meet the social service delivery needs and that their teams have the appropriate skills and tools to carry out inclusive activities; and

(3) Supporting the MoSD at the central level in its role of stewardship, coordination and monitoring/evaluation of the LCDCs, notably with indicators to strengthen social justice and equality between women and men.

Some activities the project will be developing are:

1. for the first component: promoting women participation and leadership through capacity building and the creation of intersectional and multisectoral Steering Committees at the LCDCs; mapping of the local social services; grant and capacity building for CSOs; gender analysis and GBV prevention and response planning at the LCDC; protocol for responding to GBV first-line support/disclosure; support plan on sexual and reproductive rights; trainings for preventing over-indebtedness and special loan lines for women in vulnerable situations and non-nationals; entrepreneurship support paths for loan beneficiaries; guaranteeing care services at all LCDCs; campaign awareness and advocacy on the redistributions of care tasks; creation of local caregivers network
2. for the second component: strengthening the capacities of the LCDCs on gender and multiculturality; creating a one-stop-shop system; creation of “social mediators”; mobile units; infrastructure renovation (after a safely-audit); improving accessibility and mobility for users: car and bike (pilot LCDC) driver lessons for women
3. for the third component: creation of a national network of LCDCs; strengthening capacities of the MoSD on MEAL and coordination; improving data collection; coordinating the participation of the LCDCs for policy participation; drafting of protocols for GVB (for standardization)

Over the past five years, EF has operated the project named "Stronger Together", one of the three components of the European Union funded program to strengthen Social Protection in Jordan. This engagement is to come to an end in March 2023 and it is useful source of inspiration for the new project in development.