Adaptation to Climate Change to Sustain Jordan MDG’s Achievements

A UNITED NATION COUNTRY TEAM (UNCT) JOINT PROGRAMME

Programme Summary:

This joint programme is funded under the MDG-F Environment and Climate Change thematic window and aligned with the ‘Enhancing Capacity to Adapt to Climate Change’ priority area.
This Joint Programme (JP) is supervised by four UN organizations working in Jordan including UNDP, WHO-CEHA, FAO, and UNESCO. The key national partners in this programme include the Ministry of Environment (MOEnv), Ministry of Health (MOH), Ministry of Agriculture (MOA), Ministry of Water and Irrigation (MWI) and Ministry of Education (MOE). The programme will also be supported by the UNDP Water Governance Facility at SIWI as it is in line with the strategy for UNDP’s water governance programme. Other institutions, societies, and NGO’s will be involved in the programme activities also.
Jordan made strategic advances towards the achievement of MDG targets, but its achievements are compromised by crippling water scarcity and aggravated by climate change, thus bringing about additional threats to health, food security, productivity, and human security.
This programme will help Jordan address the above key strategic issues through achieving: 1) Sustained access to improved water supply sources despite increased water scarcity induced by climate change; and 2) Strengthened adaptive capacity for health protection and food security to climate change under water scarcity conditions. These outcomes address identified barriers to adaptation and provide support to Jordan’s priorities of sustainable management of its natural resources; reducing poverty; and enhancing health indicators.

Background and Rationale:

Jordan made remarkable progress towards achieving the MDGs including reduction of poverty rates from 21% in 1997 to 14% in 2005 (MDG 1), achieving adult literacy rate of 97% (MDG 2), infant mortality rate of 24 per 1000 (MDG 4), 97% access to water, and 65% access to sanitation (MDG 7).
The 2006 Human Development Report classified Jordan as one of the ten most water scarce countries in the world. The National Agenda that sets Jordan’s development vision till 2015, as well as the United Nations Development Assistance Framework (UNDAF) document (2008-2012), stress that Jordan's remarkable development achievements are under threat due to the crippling water scarcity, which is expected to be aggravated by climate change.
The Initial National Communication (INC) to the United Nations Framework Convention to Climate Change (UNFCCC) foresees that over the next three decades, Jordan will witness a rise in temperature, drop in rainfall, reduced ground cover, reduced water availability, heat-waves, and more frequent dust storms. The Second National Communication (SNC) to the UNFCCC identifies water as a priority area.
There are several barriers to water sector adaptation to climate change that threaten the sustainability of Jordan’s achievement of the MDG targets, these include: (i) climate change risks not sufficiently taken into account within sectoral policies and investment frameworks; (ii) existing climate information, knowledge and tools are not directly relevant for supporting adaptation decisions and actions; and (iii) weak national capacity to develop sectoral adaptation responses. Jordan’s success in adapting to increased water scarcity and related threats to health, food security, productivity, and human security induced by climate change is the key to sustaining its human development achievements and growth.
For this, the identified adaptation barriers and gaps will be addressed. The direct and indirect impacts of climate change on the health, nutrition, and livelihood security of people will be assessed, and potential adaptation strategies will be screened and tested prior to wide scale application, for which, existing national adaptation capacities should be assessed and strengthened.
Jordan has recently published its  SNC (vulnerability and adaptation assessment findings will feed directly into the joint programme outputs), and now implementing the localization of MDGs in Zarqa Governorate. Moreover, this programme complements efforts by the Spanish Agency for International Cooperation to build the national capacity to restore Zarqa River Basin.
The UNDAF (2008-2012) addresses four key related challenges to sustain progress towards the MDGs, which include: (i) water scarcity; (ii) drinking water supply security and quality; (iii) health, agriculture and food production vulnerability to climate change; and (iv) vulnerability of local biodiversity to climate change.
The proposed joint programme will strengthen the United Nations Country Team’s (UNCT) efforts to achieve the UNDAF outcome of healthy and sustainable environment. This joint programme has a comparative advantage by addressing the gaps and barriers to adaptation vis à vis the other investments in the water and wastewater sectors in Jordan.

Joint Programme Results:

Capacity development is critical for the sustainability of a programme after its completion. This joint programme will develop Jordan’s key government and civil society counterparts’ capacity to adapt to climate change threats to health, food security, productivity, and human security under the conditions of severe water scarcity that is expected to be compounded by climate change. Moreover, the capacity of vulnerable communities within the Zarqa governorate, including women and the poor, and other rural / urban pilot areas to adapt to climate change will be strengthened.
This joint programme seeks to enhance capacity to adapt to climate change by addressing Jordan’s long-term adaptation needs through the following outcomes and outputs:
Outcome 1: Sustained access to improved water supply sources despite increased water scarcity induced by climate change.

1. Strengthened national drinking water quality management system at central and periphery level
2. Sustainable and reliable supply of minimum water requirements for health protection

Outcome 2: Strengthened adaptive capacity for health protection and food security to climate change under water scarcity conditions

1. Improved rural sector adaptive capacity for climate variability and change.
2. Improved national institutional and community capacity in integrated water resources management
3. Adaptation measures, by health sector and other sectors, to protect health from climate change are institutionalized.
4. Adaptation capacity of Zarqa River Basin to climate change is piloted and strengthened.