‘Jordan signed grant agreements worth $82.6 million over four months’

AMMAN – The Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation on Sunday announced it had signed grant agreements worth $82.6 million in the first four months of this year. 

The figures, e-mailed to The Jordan Times, showed that the grant agreements were signed between January 1 and April 30 of this year with several donor countries and organisations to finance a number of projects in the Kingdom. 

Canada was the largest donor with grants worth around $38.3 million to fund several schemes in the fields of renewable energy, agriculture and women’s empowerment, followed by the Kuwaiti Fund for Arab Economic Development with grants worth $20 million to finance road construction and equipment for healthcare centres included in the Jordan Response Plan (2016-2018) to the Syrian refugee crisis, said the report.

In addition, a grant agreement valued at $16.4 million was signed with Japan to supply equipment and machinery for the Water Authority of Jordan and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs to be used to assist communities hosting Syrian refugees. 

The German Development Bank committed, under a grant agreement signed in February, to extend $6.8 million to finance irrigation projects in the Jordan Valley as part of the programme “Improved Water Security for Low Income Rural and Urban Communities in Jordan”, said the report. 

The ministry said that the French Development Agency  was another party to a grant agreement valued at $864,000, under which it will fund the project preparation of non-revenue water and asset management programme in the northern governorates.

 The Global Environment Fund of the UNDP was committed to a grant of $219,000 that seeks to strengthen decision making towards ratification of the Minamata Convention and build capacity towards the implementation of future provisions, the ministry added. 

The ministry said that no loan agreements were signed during January 1- April 30.