NAF supported 130,000 families last year — spokesperson

AMMAN — The National Aid Fund (NAF) provided financial assistance to a total of 130,000 Jordanian families in 2019, a NAF spokesperson said on Sunday.

Recurring financial aid was disbursed to 105,000 families through the regular programme in 2019, 12,000 of which were families new to the NAF, spokesperson Najih Sawalha told The Jordan Times. 

He also said that the supplementary support programme, launched by the government in 2019, provided financial help to 25,000 families in the same year in its first phase. The programme will continue in 2020 and will include more families in its second phase, he added.

Sawalha attributed the increase in the number of beneficiaries to the difficult economic situations many families experience.

New people are being registered to enter the supplementary support programme in 2020, the spokesperson said, noting that beneficiaries are to be chosen based on 57 different features that will help prioritise those who most need the support.

The database for classification is formed by gathering information from 62 different official bodies around the Kingdom, he added.

Highlighting the fund’s capacity to support more families in 2020, Sawalha said that the government increased its funding to the NAF.

The NAF’s programmes offer financial help, medical insurance, contingency financial aid and physical rehabilitation equipment to beneficiaries, he said.

According to Sawalha, the fund also helps families stand on their own feet by providing them with vocational training and rehabilitation and by finding suitable job opportunities for the unemployed.