Japan offers grant of over $90,000 to Madaba municipality

AMMAN — The Government of Japan has decided to extend a grant of $90,183 to the Greater Madaba Municipality to provide kitchen equipment for the Madaba Production Kitchen.

The grant assistance comes under the Japanese scheme Grant Assistance for Grass-roots Human Security Projects (GGP), according to a statement from the Japanese embassy in Amman.

A grant contract was signed on Thursday by Japanese Ambassador to Jordan Hidenao Yanagi and Mayor of the Greater Madaba Municipality Ahmad Salameh Al Azaydeh.

This grant assistance aims to empower women and lower unemployment in Madaba by providing kitchen equipment to establish the Madaba Production Kitchen. The kitchen, which aims to increase women's economic independence and participation in Madaba's labour market, is a part of the municipality's “Strategic Plan for Local Economic Development 2019-2021”, the statement said. 

According to the Department of Statistics, the unemployment rate in Madaba reached 23.9 per cent during the third quarter of 2019, the highest of all governorates in the Kingdom.

The kitchen will be open by October of this year, the statement said.

At the signing ceremony, Yanagi expressed his appreciation to the Greater Madaba Municipality for its "commitment to local economic development and better services", according to the statement.

"We appreciate the initiative of the municipality to establish the Madaba Production Kitchen for the purpose of training vulnerable women and increasing job opportunities, which will lead them to be economically independent in the end," he was quoted as saying in the statement.

Under Japan's GGP programme, Japan has extended more than $10 million for 149 projects, including two projects in Madaba, to non-governmental organisations, schools, hospitals and local governments in Jordan since 1993, the statement said.