Al Durra International For Food Products

The Problem

Jordan is facing high rates of unemployment and a disruption of food supplies duo to the Russian-Ukrainian-war.

The unemployment rate in Jordan in 2022 was 23,1%, due to the lack of private-sector capacity to create job opportunities and a slow economy that manifests in a low-demand for labour. As a consequence, half of the existing jobs are either informal or unregistered, without social safety nets or any clear pathways to grow. Women face additional problems that lead to higher rates of unemployment such as the unavailability of women friendly work-environment and the lack of flexible working hours which makes it hard to combine employment with other responsibilities.

The aim of EYE-FI is to overcome structural problems that withhold the Jordanian youth, especially women, to participate in employment while at the same time meeting the increasing demand on food.

The Solution

As a response to the excessive unemployment or underemployment of Jordanian Youth and the increasing demand on food, Al Durra wants to increase its manufacturing production capacity by establishing three food production lines. This expansion will enhance youth and women employment in the manufacturing and agricultural sectors through creating, matching and improving employment for youth and women from Irbid, Ramtha and Jordan Valley.

We are aware of the structural problems within the industrial and agricultural sectors that might prevail women from working, therefore we will focus on creating a safe work environment to encourage women to join the labour market. To meet the needs of young women, we want to create part-time jobs and work from home opportunities for women who cannot work for long hours due to family-responsibilities. We will also do this by matching women with jobs at farms in the agricultural sector with flexible working hours.

Our aim is to:

• Create 400 jobs for youth in Al Durra. We aim to contract 10% men and 90% women (of which 20% Syrian refugees).
• Match 100 young Jordanians with decent jobs in the industrial and agricultural sector.
• Improve the working conditions of 400 current employees at Al Durra.

We hope the realization of the EYE-FI project vision will bring about positive change by enhancing youth and women employment in the agricultural and manufacturing sector in the four target areas of Irbid, Ramtha, Mafraq and Jordan Valley.

Additionality 

With the help of CFYE the EYE-FI project will be able to implement the project in 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. Additionally, the support of CFYE will enable us to embrace a more gender-sensitive prospective by covering the expenses of assigning a gender specialist, the cost conduction sessions to employers on gender policies and the creation of a women friendly work environment.