Country Portfolio Jordan
The following portfolio represents the winners from the first Call for Solutions in Jordan, launched in December 2020. Following its success, a second Call was launched and concluded in 2022. CFYE intended to co-invest in pioneering private sector-led initiatives that would deliver sustainable employment to young people, particularly women, while also supplying businesses with appropriately skilled personnel. CFYE was open to all sectors in its Call to cater to Jordan’s smaller population (10.5 million) and micro-entrepreneurial private sector. Lina Alkhawaja is our Country Lead for Jordan.
Jordan’s Job Market & Youth
The Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan is home to a predominantly young population with two-thirds of people under the age of thirty. Despite the high literacy rates (98%, 2018) and high university attainment among this demographic, the rate of unemployment is substantial, standing at close to 40% in 2019. This is not surprising given that the majority of young graduates seek work in an increasingly competitive public service sector.
CFYE’s scoping research recorded youth aspirations involve taking advantage of upskilling opportunities. The participants shared that they strive for certifications due to a clear understanding that their university qualifications were simply not enough to provide them with a direct pathway to employment opportunities.
The primary focus of youth ambition in Jordan was to find employment that offers security, and decent working conditions and allows for personal and professional development.
Jordan’s economy is dominated by micro, small and medium-sized enterprises, 90% of which have experienced a decline following the pandemic. Workers, therefore, remain vulnerable and in the long run, business efficiencies are compromised. This has significant economic implications as a 2018 ILO study exemplified that the lack of female participation in the labor force alone results in a loss of 21% in the value of the national GDP.
To help the private sector in Jordan create a pathway to decent youth employment that is in line with the youth’s ambitions, we launched our first Jordan Call in 2021. Following the innovative responses initiated by the private sector and the number of meaningful youth employment programs, we opened a second Call for Solutions in 2022 which has now been concluded.
Planned Impact
Our Portfolio in Jordan
Given Jordan youth’s aspirations, the business climate, and the needs of supply and demand, we developed a portfolio that focuses on high-priority industries, such as manufacturing, education, and research to deliver innovative solutions to the challenges put forward. We plan to achieve more than 2.430 decent jobs for Jordanian youth. This will be accomplished through creating new jobs, matching youth to appropriate jobs, or improving the conditions of existing jobs to achieve decency in work.
The professional advancement of women occupies a significant portion of the portfolio, as more than 1.400 of the jobs will be held by young Jordanian women – exceeding CFYE’s 50% ambition.
Our current portfolio in Jordan begins to address the complexities of youth ambitions, particularly the goal of upskilling. We are encouraged to see how our partners tackle these issues by providing vocational training in the manufacturing sector, thereby engaging youth with different experience levels in the workforce. We have a combination of waged employment and self-employment in our current portfolio, united in one goal: helping youth find decent employment.
With the help of CFYE, we are able to create our own upskilling programme for Jordanian youth, especially women, that graduate from university with insufficient skills and experience to enter the labour market. Without this support, the journey of our programme would have been longer and harder.
CFYE funding will enable us to create new production lines and to cut the projected delivery time in half. As a consequence, we will be able to create more employment opportunities for youth, especially women, at a faster pace. Additionally, the fund will enable us to provide healthcare and childcare facilities to employees, and to improve the quality and accessibility of employment for women.
The CFYE support will help us establish a food supply chain in three countries through expediting the process of growth, and will assist in overcoming the challenges which youth and women encounter in obtaining decent employment. In general, the support and technical assistance will help us create sustainable impact for youth employment in Jordan.
CFYE’s support is crucial for the course of the EYE-FI project, as with the support we will be able to implement it’s goals within the course of the coming two years instead of five. It will also support us to target a significant number of youth, especially women, and actualize improvement of the quality of employment.
CFYE is helping us with a faster value realization of our project. CFYE support is making sure that we can reach and help young people, especially women, gain decent employment in Jordan. The project is committed to create, match and improve a total of 1000 employment opportunities.
The aim of our project is to provide decent employment opportunities for the youth in Jordan. With the help of CFYE, we will be able to reach this goal in a shorter period than we otherwise would have. With an eye on female participation in the labour force, we will create, match, and improve a total of 3,500 jobs over the span of two years.
With CFYE’s support, our project is more likely to reach our goal of training more than 300 people and hiring 200 young people. Both the financial and technical assistance will be vital to improving the project and will enable us to provide decent work for a higher number of youth and women.
As this consortium is private sector-led with no previous experience in managing similar projects, CFYE’s technical support will be vital to achieving the desired impact. This will help us achieve our goal of generating 400 sustainable gig-based opportunities and matching 1600 job seekers.