Summary

The Project “Employment Intensive Investment Programme (EIIP) and Decent Employment in Jordan” is an Italian-funded EIIP project by the Italian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, through the Italian agency for development cooperation (AICS). The project is a green EIIP project whose ultimate goal is to enhance green economic opportunities for some of Jordan’s most vulnerable workers, through immediate short-term job creation and green home-based business development support.

The project is targeting the vulnerable Jordanian host communities, with focus on women and people with disabilities in Mafraq and Irbid governorates, through generating 20,000 green working days and providing post-training services and market-based skills training for vulnerable Jordanian and Syrian refugees, in order to improve employability in the labour market. It also addresses critical issues regarding green livelihoods for vulnerable Jordanian and Syrian refugees, as it aims to strengthen the employability of job seekers based on market needs and provide post-training support to graduates in order to improve their chances of acquiring jobs.

The project is aligned with the Regional Refugee and Resilience Plan (3RP) 2021- 2022, Jordan Response Plan (2020-2021) and Decent Work Country Program (2018-2022).
Also, the project is contributing to the achievement of the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development, namely goal 5 on gender equality, goal 8 on decent work and economic growth, goal 10 on reducing equality and goal 13 on climate action.

Objectives

The overall strategic objective of the project is to support a more inclusive and accessible green labour market for vulnerable Syrian refugees and Jordanian men, women and persons with disabilities through:

1. Increased access to decent green jobs generated through green local infrastructure projects.
2. Female run, small and micro green enterprises increased and enhanced.

Main activities

• Train public sector engineers on Green Local resource Based methodologies, and supervise, assist and technically guide the technical teams throughout project implementation.
• Sign 5 implementation agreements with 5 municipalities in Irbid and Mafraq governorates to implement green and climate change adaptation EIIP projects.
• Establish community maintenance groups among groups of workers, including community-based contracting for women and connect workers with longer-term employment opportunities through Employment Service Centres.
• Develop the knowledge and skills of trainers to enable them to monitor and advise new small business owners and set up a network of trainers to administer business development services and administer business development support to female entrepreneurs through the network.
• Launch a business plan competition to support female owned small and micro businesses to tap into new markets, with seed funding and provide winners with financial support (grants), and coaching to start their own businesses.