Jordan, Cities Implementing Transparent Innovative and Effective Solutions (CITIES)

Programme Objective:

The wider objective of the project was to make municipal governance in Jordan more effective.

The specific objectives of the project was to work through an integrated approach, providing technical assistance to implement innovative and sustainable solutions to service delivery, capacity constrains, citizens-government engagement, and community cohesion in Jordanian municipalities. The project aimed to increase citizen responsiveness and foster resilience and has helped key governorates and municipal stakeholders translate administrative reforms into community cohesion and stability. Additionally, CITIES has achieved sustainable results and impact through close coordination with Jordanian stakeholders and beneficiaries and has supported the Jordanian national decentralization agenda at large.

The results of the project as outlined in the proposal are: i) increased municipal service delivery to the Jordanian people; ii) more effective and efficient municipal organisations; iii) better aacountability of municipalities vis-a-vis its population and iv) improved citizens engagement.

VNGI within the CITIES project has provided technical assistance in the areas of increasing sustainability of municipal government operations and support to the Inter-Ministerial Committee for Decentralization.

VNG I has led component 1 of the CITIES project aimed at improved service delivery at the local level and led the CITIES Decentralization units supporting the implementation of the decentralization agenda in Jordan.

More specifically, VNGI was responsible for the following:

• Providing project leadership of subprupose 1 via the Service Delivery Oversight Advisor. The Service Delivery Oversight Advisor was responsible for leading the participatory strategic planning processes aimed at developing a common vision for service delivery; providing ongoing assessments of technical and management capacities of service delivery departments and service delivery processes and procedures; and developing comprehensive service delivery performance measurement to enhance service delivery performance.
• Providing specialized technical inputs in the areas of improved service delivery, sustainability of municipal government operations and increased responsivness to citizen priorities.
• Providing two Service Delivery specialists responsible for assisting with ongoing assessments of technical and management capacities of service delivery departments and service delivery processes and procedures; repsonsible for training municipal staff and implementing strategic planning processes including developing vision statements, realistic action plans, and day-to-day service delivery.
• Providing Jordanian and expatriate short term-experts in service delivery, cost recovery, performance improvement, municipal procurement, citizen engagement
• Providing project leadership of the CITIES Decentralization Unit via the Decentralization Advisor. The decentralization advisor is responsible for the provision of technical and operational support to the inter-ministerial committee of the Jordanian government and manages the provision of thematic expertise within decentralization unit to the different ministries involved in the implemenation of the Jordanian decentralization agenda.

The specific results achieved include:

• Municipalities have been supported in their budgeting process resulting in more participatory and realistic annual budgets;
• Municipalities have been supported in drafting Local Development Plans for their community in line with the new decentralized mandate for investment planning;
• These Local Development Plans have aided municipalities in defining their priority needs, development indicators, timelines, resource sharing, and budget needs
• Municipalities have been supported in developing solid waste management plans for their area, as a result of which they now have a complete picture of all aspects of operation and maintenance;
• Street naming and building maps have been developed for all 92 participating municipalities and have been completed already in 50 municipalities;
• Maps of street names and building numbers, including in geographic information system (GIS) file format, were finalized for 90 municipalities and approved by their municipal councils.