Event reports
1. Program Overview
Thursday, May 27th, 2010
Opening Session
‘’Dr. Khaled Al-Awamleh’’
Visions Center for Strategic
And Development Studies
Amman-Jordan
‘’Dr. Martin Beck’’
Resident Representative
Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung
Amman Office – Jordan
‘’Ali Al-Shora`a’’
Gouvernor of Karak City
Karak – Jordan
‘’Dr. Raed Al-Adwan’’
Local Development Directorate
Ministry of Interior
Amman – Jordan
‘’Prof. Abdelrahim Al-Hunaiti’’
President of Mu’tah University
Karak – Jordan
Dr. Marouf Al-Bakheit
Vice President of Mu’tah University
First Session: Decentralization, Administrative Regulations and Civic Society in
Jordan
Decentralization and Human Rights from a Legal Perspective
‘’Dr. Mohammad Shawqi’’
Director of International Law Forum
University of Cairo, Egypt
Decentralization and Local Public Administration in Jordan
‘’Dr. Raed Al-Adwan’’
Local Development Directorate
Ministry of Interior
Amman – Jordan
‘’Moderator: Dr. Marouf Al-Bakheit’’
Board of Chairmen
Mu’tah University Karak
Second Session: Municipalities, Women, Men and Private Sector Participation in Local Development
The Role of Local Observatories in Planning for Local Development
‘’Dr. Jihad Abu Al-Sondas’’
Dean of Planning and Management
Al-Balqa Applied University
Al Salt – Jordan
Media Women Role in Local Development
‘’Sawsan Zaideh’’
Building a Municipality: How to Assure Participation of Men and Women Alike in Local Development
‘’Dr. Renate Reiter’’
Professor for Political Sciences
University of Hagen – Germany
‘’Moderator: Dr. Hussein Mahadeen’’
Sociologist
Mu’tah University Karak – Jordan
Final Discussion
Moderator: Dr. Raed Al-Adwan Governor Ali Al-Shora’a
Dr. Jihad Abu Al-Sondos
Dr. Martin Beck
Dr. Khaled Al-Awamleh
Dr. Renate Reiter
Prof. Mohammad Shouqi
Sawsan Zaideh
Dr. Amjad Al-Shraideh
2. Objectives
With the first competitive elections in 1989
Jordan’s late King Hussein paved the way
for enhancing the political participation,
which is a substantial component of a functioning
political system. King Abdullah II
initiated the first measures to improve the
political, social and economic framework on
the way of fair political participation. He
therefore founded a royal commission in
2005 to work out a decentralization plan for
Jordan’s political system. This plan aims at
enhancing the political participation of citizens
on the local community level, thereby
creating an open, transparent and citizen friendly
political system and delegating
power form the highly centralized government
bureaucracy to the governorate and
community level. Though it may be the
main objective of the regime to stabilize the
prevalent political order with its limited opportunities
of political participation, Jordan’s
citizens should take the government by its
word and should seize the chance of widening
the civic participation. During the workshop
on May 27th, organized by KAS Amman
in cooperation with the Visions Center for
Strategic and Development Studies at
Mu’tah University in Karak, participants and
experts exchanged ideas and opinions on
local development. The topics discussed
covered, among others, the fair representation
of men and women on the local level,
the role of the private sector and of the local
community, the decentralisation project
of the government and the central government’s
role in the process of decentralisation.
3. Course of the event
Dr. Khaled Al-Awamleh, Director of the
Visions Center, opened the second day of
the workshop. In his welcoming speech he
talked about the key role of the university in
the field of regional and local development.
The mission of the university should not
only be to produce new knowledge, impart
and apply it, but also to promote human
resources as the basis of social development.
The training of stakeholders and experts
in economy, politics and society is one
of the most important pillars of sustainable
national and regional development.
Dr. Martin Beck, Resident Representative
of the Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung in Amman,
pointed out that the workshop can betraced
back to the promising initiative of King Abdullah
II to decentralize the political decision-
making process in Jordan.
However, this decentralization process
should further enhance the capacities of
municipalities and strengthen the participation
on the local level. The government
should therefore take measures to help citizens
getting the opportunity to take part in
the decision-making processes and to implement
their interests on the local level.
Hence, the government has to provide the
municipalities and governorates with the
necessary financial means.
Both Dr. Al-Awamleh and Dr. Beck stated
that the KAS-Visions Center workshop is
particularly important as it is the first coordinated
effort between the government,
represented by the directory of the local development
at the ministry of interior, municipalities,
local media departments, institutions
of higher education and advocacy
groups to organize a joint event on local
development and civic participation in governorates
and local communities.
The governor of Karak, Ali Al-Shora’a,
mentioned the celebrations of the 64th anniversary
of Jordan’s independence. He
stressed that since its independence, the
country has faced many challenges. The
government has to plan and implement a
comprehensive development strategy that
guarantees the participation of all Jordanians
in the political decision-making process.
Dr. Shawqi opened the first session of the
workshop with a speech on the “Role of Decentralisation
and Human Rights from a Legal
Perspective”. At the beginning he defined
the concepts of decentralisation and
democracy. According to him, decentralisation
means political reform measures taken
to shift administrative, fiscal and political
functions to regional and local levels of administration.
He defined democracy as the
government of the people, by the people,
for the people. The people are the highest
sovereign and highest authority of political
action of the state. Nevertheless, the people
do not rule directly. Modern democracies
are marked by political and social institutions
like parliaments and political parties
which limit the participation of the majority
of the people to legally regulated participatory
processes.
Subsequently, Dr. Shawqi discussed in his
presentation whether decentralisation and
democracy could be ranked among human
rights. From his point of view, article 21 of
the UN Human Rights Charta of 1948 and
article 25 of the International Covenant on
Civil and Political Rights of 1966 clarify that
decentralisation and democracy are part of
the human rights because everything that
generates human rights is a human right
itself. According to the UN Charta and the
International Covenant, everyone has the
right to equal accession to public offices, to
participate in public affairs directly or by
freely elected representatives. The people’s
will is expressed in periodic and genuine
elections which have to be held on the barrs
of universal and equal suffrage and in secrecy.
These elections express the will of
the people and are the basis of the authority
of government.
Dr. Al-Adwan presented in his lecture on
“Decentralization and Local Administration”
the decentralization plan of the government.
Since 2009 a new committee has
been working on compiling the financial,
political, organizational and judicial framework
for the implementation of the decentralization
plan. Decentralization envisions a
delegation of power, capacities and resources
on the governmental and communal
level. The capabilities and financial means
of the 12 governorates have to be strengthened
in such a way as to enable the civil
society to participate at the political life of
the state on all levels. Yet, the huge socioeconomic
gap between the rural and urban
population shows that the decisions of the
government do not always reflect the needs
and priorities of the citizens.
In the discussion, different options on how
to face the marginalisation of organisations
of the civil society were discussed. Furthermore,
questions were raised on whether
democracy is a suitable concept for the Arab
world, whether democracy might also have
some negative effects and whether a political
system coined by tribal structures could
be more beneficial to Jordan.
Dr. Renate Reiter! opened the second session
of the workshop and presented different
options to design participation in local
communities. She stated that there are differences
between traditional forms of political
representation such as in presidential or
parliamentarian systems of government and
new forms of participation. She then focused
on participation of men and women in
local elections and their representation in
local institutions. Regarding the passive
vote, there are nearly no differences between
men and women; both sexes are affected
by a significant decline of participation
in elections and in political interest in
Germany. In comparison to France, where
there is a balanced representation of men
and women in local councils and high rank
executive positions, women are underrepresented
in Germany. In the following,
Dr. Reiter discussed reasons for unequal
representation in local councils: mainly,
equal representation depends on the form
of election law. Contrary to the system of
majority voting, proportional representation
abets balanced active participation. Besides,
quotas in political parties should secure career
opportunities for women. Moreover, an
unequal representation of men and women
prevails in local political and social networks.
Unequal time resources and genderspecific
tasks inhibit equal representation of
man and women in politics, economy and
society. Quotas, party competition, strategies
of parties and social networks that improve
career opportunities of women and
new forms of grassroots democracy promote
a more equal representation on the
local and national level.
Sawsan Zaideh talked about the women
quota that has been introduced on the national
level in 2003. The problem with the
quota is that due to the Jordanian election
law it favours women from rural and less
populated areas. The new election law for
2010 will raise the women’s quota from six
to twelve seats. Currently, women are under-
represented in the political system of
Jordan because of the weak party structures
that do not encourage women’s candidature.
Furthermore, the media do not support
women in improving their social position.
The media only occasionally promote
the participation of woman to alter Jordan’s
outward image.
Then, Dr. Jihad Abu Al-Sondas presented
the role of local monitoring in planning for
local development. Urban observation centres
are necessary to assure correct implementation
of the government’s development
plans. In order to engage local communities
in the development and implementation of
communal development plans, they should
get the opportunity to observe and evaluate
the project development and outcomes.
At the end of the workshop, Dr. Beck
stressed that the Jordanian governorates
and local communities need more financial
support from the central government.
Dr. Al-Adwan explained that the results of
the workshop and the feed back to the decentralization
plan would be communicated
to the Ministry of Interior. Dr. Reiter and
Sawsan Zaideh emphasized the important
role of women in local development and
civic participation as agents of gender specific
needs.
4. Conclusion
As a first coordinated effort between the
government, represented by the directory of
the local development at the ministry of interior,
municipalities, local media departments,
institutions of higher education, advocacy
groups, the joint workshop of the
Konrad-Adenauer-Stiftung and the Visions
Center for Strategic and Development Studies
on civic participation and local development
has paved the way for future discussions
on decentralization.
The participation of the governor of Karak,
Ali Al-Shora’a, as well as of other highranking
experts, showed the mportance of
discussing concepts on local development,
civic participation and decentralization. The
workshop fulfilled the function of bringing
together experts from different areas who
discuss highly significant issues such as decentralizing
power and financial resources.
Especially the contribution of Dr. Reiter on
equal representation of men and women
provided the audience with a new perspective
of gender segregation and equality in
political participation.
The feedback on the workshop was very
positive. Many participants used the opportunity
of a free exchange of opinions on
problems that have not been discussed in
Jordan so far, to have their say on important
issues such as the role of local communities
in the government’s decentralization
plan. Participants expressed their interest
for follow-up events.