Week 1: Faith in the Middle East
Background
To say I came to Jordan at a good time would be an understatement. I came at the perfect time.
Walking into the Jordan CITIES (Cities Implementing Transparent, Innovative and Effective Solutions) Project Office for the first time Monday morning I was met with a flurry of activity as the office was preparing for a very important presentation. The acting USAID Jordan Mission Director, Nancy Eslick, was visiting the office for the first time to be briefed on the status of the project. From Chief of Party Mark Grubb’s opening remarks through Ms. Eslick’s closing remarks, I saw that, although the work the team endeavors to complete each day is difficult and demanding, there was an overwhelming sense of hope and confidence to the future long-term success and development of the Kingdom. In just a week at the office, I could not agree more.
Jordan CITIES Project sits within the scope of USAID’s largest mission. The project tackles six thematic areas deemed necessary to further development in the Kingdom: (1) Improved Service Delivery; (2) Sustainability of Local Governments’ Operations; (3) Community-Government Engagement; (4) Community Cohesion and Resilience; (5) Gender Equity and Social Inclusion; and finally, (5) Decentralization. Each theme corresponds to a team within the project.
As an intern I will have the privilege of working alongside two of these teams: the Advisory Unity on Decentralization for the first half of the summer and Community Cohesion Team for the second half of the summer.
Jordan, like many developing countries, exhibits the signs of spatial inequality or sub-national gaps in development between different regions and different cities. While I have not had the chance in my limited time so far to see that reality with my own eyes, my few excursions throughout the city have revealed a visible difference between east Amman (an older, more conservative, and poorer side of the city) and west Amman (a newer, more modern, and richer side of the city). A national development gap such as this brings Jordanians from every corner of the country to Amman in search of better opportunities—opportunities that are all but non-existent within their own homes and communities.
Along with the other five thematic areas, CITIES has deemed decentralization as a mechanism for solving this problem: when a government decentralizes such that local councils can flourish and hear the needs of their people and act on their own authority in their own jurisdiction, a more transparent and accountable society can emerge where citizens see opportunity within their own regions, municipalities, and homes.
This process has been brewing since the August 2015 passage of the Decentralization Law and the Municipalities Law, marking the origins of local councils and the integration of such councils and municipalities into the overall governance infrastructure. The new structure of decentralization emerging since 2015 is comprised of a local council on the lowest level, a municipal council, an executive council headed by a governor, and a governorate council.
The past three years have seen such milestones in progress, but a great deal of work remains and that is where this summer begins.
Delving into Decentralization
After the presentation was finished I began my first day of work with the Advisory Unit on Decentralization. Though the main CITIES office is located near the Sixth Circle in Amman, my team operates from inside the Ministry of Planning & International Cooperation (MOPIC) near the Third Circle (Note: Amman was built on seven mountains, each of which corresponds to a circle in the present-day city). Lamar, Ghaida, Luna, Ahmad, and I all pile into a small upstairs office and get to work.
Prior to my arrival, the team had traveled to three governorates in Jordan (Madaba, Ma’an, and Jerrash) to attend needs identification or needs-setting sessions at the local councils to hear what the people wanted the most from their local governments. The data collected there will be used to create the country’s first needs manual—a great feat for an accountable and transparent future Jordan.
Over the next few months, the team has the monumental task of creating this needs manual and establishing collaborative efforts with government officials—namely ministers and Inter-Ministerial Committee for Decentralization (IMC)—to coordinate the decentralization process by having them be the ultimate implementers in this process. After all, Jordan is for Jordanians. That concept is at the center of all CITIES and the Decentralization Unit do. I was able to observe the beginning of this process when I went with the team on a visit to the Ministry of the Interior to discuss the participation of the Ministry in the decentralization process.
My role in all of this can sometimes depend on the day-to-day needs of the team; but as of right now, I am assisting their efforts on three tasks: (1) researching the best key performance indicator or KPI to measure decentralization, (2) conducting a comparative study on decentralization efforts in Jordan, Iraq, Lebanon, Tunisia and Morocco; and finally, (3) assisting in the creation of a workplan for the project going forward.
In the halls of MOPIC on my second day I was met with the surprise of seeing an old friend—Dr. Khalid Armoti (former director in the Ministry of the Interior)—who I had met two years before at a conference hosted by UNDP in Beirut, Lebanon where I was interning at the time. It was an illustration of how small the development field in the Middle East can be, although the tasks that stand before them always seem to range from enormous to monumental in scope.
CITIES operates as a family. On my first day, Mark Grubb handed me a USAID Jordan CITIES mug, stating that now I was a part of this family. On my second day, Ghaida gave me a key to the office. And on my third day, Lamar told me to come with him to brief Mark on the meeting I had observed in the Ministry, saying we are all in this together. Even Ruby and Hala have helped me in every way they can in adjusting to living in this new city, taking on the role of being my Jordanian mothers. I still have a lot I want to prove to the team and to myself though to feel completely worthy of a spot in this family, but knowing that a chair may be open for me gives me all of the pride in the world. I feel lucky to have the chance to be a part of this family.
Working during the Holy Month of Ramadan
The first few weeks of my time in Jordan falls during the Islamic Holy Month of Ramadan. Being Lebanese-American and having spent countless summers in Lebanon during Ramadan, I am not entirely unfamiliar to the customs, rules, and traditions of this holy month. In commemorating Allah’s revelation of the Quran to the Prophet Muhammad, Muslims worldwide fast from dawn to sunset (a practice referred to in Arabic as sawm or صوم), after which the fast is broken with a meal called iftar (or الإفطار) celebrated with family and friends at home or out in restaurants.
However, Ramadan in Jordan, a country with 95% of the population following Sunni Islam, has in some ways also been an entirely new experience from what I have seen in a country like Lebanon.
As most of my colleagues are Muslim, CITIES like almost all businesses and organization, adjusts its work hours to accommodate workers who are fasting. Workers can come in at 9:00 AM and stay until 3:00 PM or come in at 10:00 AM and stay until 4:00 PM. Along with such scheduling changes, co-workers who are not fasting follow considerate practices around the office. For example, during lunch Lamar, Ghaida, and I eat in a separate room or at least try and be discrete about eating and drinking, showing our respect for our co-workers who are fasting. There is something very kind and considerate about such a practice—a symbol of the modern Middle East living in respect and harmony with one another that stands in contrast to images of a warring Middle East as commonly seen in the media.
Additionally, I attended my first iftar dinner this week, hosted by my co-worker Ruby at a restaurant in an area of the city called Abdoun. With the breaking of the fast at 7:30 PM, the city transforms. While there is little to no traffic in the morning hours, after iftar the city explodes and the old and young alike head out to celebrate with friends and family in restaurants and cafes. A route that may have taken me five minutes in the morning can suddenly take upwards of an hour as the city awakes from its fast.
Prior to iftar on most days many restaurants and shops remain closed with the exception of tourist attractions as the population in Amman observes the sawm. However, never was the city more peaceful and motionless then on Friday. Friday is the most significant day of the week in the Islamic faith as Muslims gather to pray in mosques, or masjids (مسجد) around the city. The city’s streets echoed with voices of Imams calling the people to prayer from the minarets that tower over the streets. Nowhere was the sight of this congregation more awe-inspiring then on the streets surrounding the Grand Husseini Mosque in Al-Balad, or downtown Amman. In the plaza in front of the masjid sat hundreds and hundreds of people preparing to pray. Some sat on ornately designed prayer rugs while others stood in a line waiting to receive a flattened cardboard box from various carts on the street. Very few cars roamed the street and as the plaza filled up, people began setting up on the streets and sidewalks before the closed markets and stores, referred to as souks or الأسواق. Being raised Druze and spending summers in Lebanon, a Christian-majority country, I had never seen a sight like this before and felt entirely unprepared for how its beauty and innocence struck me. A city came together on this day as it did on every Friday, leaving the material world for the spiritual one to celebrate their faith in Allah.
I stood completely motionless watching the prayer and I suddenly thought of work that I would be assisting with this summer and the work the team would continue working on long after after I would be gone. The illustration of faith I saw on the street that day was not a foreign feeling to me. Being Druze I share their faith in Allah. But moreover, I share that faith in humanity and the ability of the men and women that Allah created to prosper and succeed. I have faith that Jordanians will soon see a life of better opportunity and prosperity in every corner of the Kingdom. I have faith in Jordan and its ability to continue to progress and stand as an example of the modern Middle East.
I have faith in the Middle East.
Disclaimer: These reflections are my own and do not reflect those of USAID or the USAID CITIES Project.