Insight.Mar 11, 2020

Drought management strengthened in Jordan

This short film presents what has been done to support drought management in Jordan, first through the GoAL WaSH programme, and during the last year within the framework of the GoAL-WaterS programme. Jordan is the second most water scarce country in the world, which poses challenges to growth and development.

Drought represents a serious challenge undermining Jordan’s growth and development. This is because it is directly related to the water shortage in the country. The government of Jordan has recognized the importance of strengthening the national water governance capacities in drought management. In this context, the government developed a national institutional setup and endorsed the national drought management policy in water sector. The ongoing GoAL-Waters intervention in Jordan aims at demonstrating more practical measures at groundwater basins level. Drought vulnerability assessment were carried out in four major water basins; Yarmouk, Amman-Zarqa, Mujib and Azraq. Dialogues were convened with all concerned stakeholders to prepare a drought mitigation and response priority list for each basin. The priority lists were defined based on a combination of science-based and traditional knowledge.