The Higher Population Council held, through the Share-Net Jordan “Knowledge Platform on Reproductive Health” Project and in cooperation with the Dutch Organization for Scientific Research (NWO-WOTRO) and the participation of the studies’ project teams, a mid-term evaluation meeting between (25-26/2/2019) regarding the “in progress” studies projects relating to reproductive health that were funded for Jordan by the Dutch organization .
The Council’s Secretary, Dr. Abla Amwai, stressed the importance of the meeting to further promote and deploy reproductive health strategies in order to expand the knowledge resulting from such projects with the national bodies concerned with the development of policies and practices by presenting and identifying the challenges and lessons learned in order to develop improved policies and interventions regarding reproductive health for women and youth in Jordan. Dr. Amwai noted that the Council is in the process of updating the National Reproductive Health Strategy 2019-2023, where the results of these projects are utilized as one of the strategy’s inputs.
The studies projects, started in September 2017 and will continue for a period of two years, tackled the topics of reproductive health rights of youth and women in Jordan and the extent to which reproductive health services vary between the Kingdom’s governorates (National Center For Culture & Arts, American University of Beirut). In addition to understanding the reproductive health needs of Jordanian and Syrian youth (a collaborative research between Harvard College/USA, the Jordanian Hashemite Fund for Human Development and the Dutch organization for scientific research “WOTRO”), family planning through behavioral economics / an analytical field study (Texas University, Jordan University of Science and Technology, the Jordanian Ministry of Health) and Syrian refugee youth in Jordan: early marriage in perspective / a qualitative study (Yarmouk University, Ahel Aljabal Association for Human Development, the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies “Geneva”).
On the sidelines, a panel discussion attended by Share-Net Jordan members, the competent national bodies and the national experts concerned with the development of reproductive health policies and practices was held to brief them on the projects’ progress and to provide recommendations for the results’ dissemination in Jordan to facilitate knowledge-sharing with the relevant actors, whether practitioners or policymakers on how to use research results in policies and practices.
Furthermore, a special-focused session was held for national experts in reproductive health, during which they shared their experience and knowledge on transferring research results into policies that are enforceable on the ground.
It is worth noting that the Council hosts the Knowledge Platform on Reproductive Health (Share-Net Jordan) that is funded by the International Share-Net Netherlands Institution. The platform aims at creating an online interactive platform to support reproductive health research with the participation of relevant partners in different sectors, facilitate knowledge building and dissemination in this field and build the capacities of main partners in order to identify knowledge gaps. Dutch institutions offer Jordan a number of grants for research and studies on different topics through recognized research centers.
