In cooperation with the European Union, HPC conducted today, Wednesday, a workshop on the "investment in the demographic opportunity to achieve economic development and women's empowerment" with the participation of a number of concerned members from the House of Representatives.
The workshop was aimed at enhancing the knowledge of the House of Representatives members on the population and development issues in Jordan, promoting their role in supporting legislations relating to population issues and allocating financial resources to implement related programs. In addition, the workshop sought to raise the Members’ awareness of the importance of integrating these issues in development plans which requires systematically identifying population-related factors and strategies and addressing them in each economic sector, as well as analyzing the demographic aspects by planners in their sectors and dealing with the plans based on the related population issues.
Furthermore, HPC's Secretary, Dr. Abla Amawi, noted that by conducting these workshops, HPC is looking forward to enhance the Members’ knowledge on population and development issues in Jordan and gain their support in facing these issues together and supporting related legislations. HPC is also looking to adopt a cooperation framewofk with the House of Representatives that aims at institutionalizing the work and ensure its continuity. In addition, Amawi indicated that HPC’s key priorities are achieving equitable and sustainable growth based on planning from the perspective of the demographic opportunity policies, addressing the dimensions of voluntary and forced migration, promoting gender equality and women's empowerment and supporting reproductive health rights within the human rights system and the ICPD Program of Action as part of achieving the 2030 sustainable development plan.
Amawi stressed the importance of the House of Representatie’s role in enacting new legislations related to population and development issues and activating and updating the current ones by using and investing the strengths to set the legislations necessary to achieve and invest the demographic opportunity. Furthermore, she stressed how important it is to open the dialogue between parliamentarians and researchers to look at the science-based researches in order to convince parliamentarians to adopt the population and development issues, stressing the how important it is for planning, service and statistical bodies to be followed-up by parliamentarians for the purpose of developing a demographic, economic, social and environmental map as well as an early warning system that highlights the variations between the geographical areas and the different economic and social classes.
Amawi said that it is key for parliamentarian to call the government to allocate sufficient financial resources to support population and development policies, as well as encourage ministries to incorporate population issues in sectoral strategies aas well as viromental pulation,economical, tatrians s and activating and updating the current ones depending on the ctive healthnd programmes at the both the national and local level. She also stated that it is important to have periodical mechanisms to submit reports that assess the national programs related to population issues and submit them to the Prime Ministry and Parliament.
The Head of the Parliamentary Support Component in the EU Support to Jordanian Democratic Institutions & Development project, Johan Hommes, how important it is for members of the House of Representatives to be aware of the population developments in Jordan due to their great impact on the country’s inclusive development and the opportunities they present, indicating that EU Support project is working to help the House of Representatives enhance the regulatory capacities of the House of Representatives committees and members by conducting workshops such as this one. During these workshops, important issues and policies would be discussed with experts, thus enhancing the House of Representatives’ oversight over the Executive Power.
The Head of Labour, Social Development and Population committees in the House of Representatives, Khaled Al-Fatansa, stated that the demographic transition is a universal phenomenon, the time, speed, impact on the sustainable development of which vary greatly between countries. He added that it is important to develop policies aimed at facilitating safe, organized and legal migration, support lifelong learning and are family-friendly to achieve the lifelong sustainability of social security systems.
The President of the Women's Affairs Committee at the House of Representatives, Reem Abu Dalbouh, stressed that in light of the participatory and complementary approach adopted with all national institutions including HCP, the House of Representatives has a significant role to play in utilizing demographic changes in achieving national security, economic growth, women's empowerment and eventually achieving and invest the demographic opportunity, as well as focusing on where gender falls in these opportunities.
The Head of the Jordan Parliamentary Women’s Caucus, Dr. Sabah Shaar, stated that showed that the Women’s Caucus is one of the pillars of women’s joint efforts under the parliament aimed at advancing national issues, in general, and women’s issues, in particular and enhance the legislative and regulatory roles of women parliamentarians due to the positive effect it has in promoting representation of Jordanian women and supporting their access to decision-making positions.
During the workshop, HCP conducted two exercises for the House of Representatives members, one of them about the demographic opportunity from the perspective of gender and was presented by Dr Abla Amawi and the other was about the impact of population growth on development and was presented by HPC’s main researcher, Ghaleeb Alazzeh. Moreover, HPC’s Assistant Secretary for Technical Affairs, Rania Al-Abadi, reviewed the the House of Representatives’ role in supporting population and development issues.
