Drought Management Policies and Institutional Mandate in Jordan

Drought represents a serious challenge that affects sustainable development in Jordan. Because a drought is directly related to the water, Jordan has created many strategies and policies for different institutions; these strategies contain different aspects related to drought management and drought adaptation for agriculture, surface water, groundwater, health, land use, livestock, the environment, desertification, and rangeland. These strategies and policies are interrelated. Reviewing the existing strategies and policies shows the gaps and shortcomings with drought management. A drought monitoring and drought early warning system have been suggested by many strategies. Many projects and programs have been proposed to reduce the negative effect of droughts without any real implementation on the ground. There is a need to improve the understanding of a drought’s effects on the water sector as well as to assess their underlying causes, to identify the detrimental effects, and to recommend the appropriate mitigation and response actions through effective bottom-up, multi-stake holder processes which are rooted in the “priority-setting” approach.