Water and Agriculture in Jordan

There is a strong awareness in the Jordanian agricultural water policy sector of the need to improve water productivity, and the technical and management means needed to achieve this. However, challenges remain in implementing the required evidence-based policy changes to improve both water and agricultural economic productivity in a coherent and socially sensitive manner, and with the coordination and support from all relevant ministries.

Three key obstacles hinder effective planning and implementation of water allocation and agricultural efficiency to improve water security:

1. Resistance to change — the perception by decision-makers that a social backlash to proposed policies will lead to social and political consequences. Therefore, minimising short-term socio-political risks is prioritised against maximising long-term water security.
2. Challenges of policy coordination — overlap and gaps in policy and legal structures, not only in water and agriculture, but also in energy, economic and social policy. These coordination challenges hinder the dissemination of information, lead to inefficiency in the use of scientific knowledge, and create silos in the delivery policy across the multiple relevant sectors. Gaps in coordination have also been found to lead locals to perform illegal acts in the agriculture and water sector.
3. Divergent views on future potential and policy priorities — different stakeholders hold divergent views on policy priorities and how they should be implemented. This results in conflicting and possibly contradictory policy goals and information hindering sustained and supported progress.

Methodology and Activities

• Key field interviews with stakeholders in the water and agricultural field in Jordan (farmers, water users, policy-makers, and practitioners):
  • Identifying the relevant stakeholders (water users and farmers) based on the interview results
  • Designing a stakeholder map analysis based on the fieldwork results
  • Identifying the policy-makers and planners
• Detailed study of presented agricultural water policies and conceptual map of the political economy of the policy system
• Organising vision roundtables and interviews with resource users and the policy community
• Preparing a comprehensive report which contains a description of the above-mentioned results with recommendations for follow-up, using water resource pathway modelling and scenario options
• Preparing a periodical progress report on a monthly basis for the Dutch Embassy in Amman and RVO

This project was conducted in collaboration with the University of Oxford.

Water and Agriculture in Jordan: Understanding Current Water and Agricultural Priorities and Futures