Social Development, Labour ministries sign MoU for women's economic empowerment

AMMAN — The Social Development Ministry and Labour Ministry on Tuesday signed a memorandum of understanding under which the fund will allocate JD8 million for a financing and lending programme dedicated to the economic empowerment of women.

The memo was signed by Minister of Social Development and Head of the Ministerial Committee for Women's Empowerment, Wafa Bani Mustafa, and Minister of Labour and Chairperson of the Development and Employment Fund, Yousef Shamali, the Jordan News Agency, Petra, reported. 

Under the memorandum, the fund will receive applications through 16 branches and three financing sources in the northern, central and southern Badia regions, targeting women between the ages of 18 and 45, with a financing amount that ranges between JD5,000 and JD25,000, exclusively for productive projects, at a murabaha (an Islamic finance and investment instrument) rate of 2.5 per cent annually. 

The programme grants the borrower a grace period of 12 months to pay the instalments, enabling women to operate their projects with a re-payment period of seven years.

The memorandum aims to enhance the role of women in society and their economic participation in line with Royal and government directives aimed at enhancing women’s self-employment.

Commenting on the agreement, Bani Mustafa said that the MoU is part of an executive plan for the Economic Modernisation Vision and a government commitment to implementing the vision's strategy to empower women and increase their economic participation.

She indicated that the government has worked to simplify the procedures for granting women loans through financing portfolios, pointing out that the memorandum provides "exceptional" conditions for the financing portfolio.

For his part, Shamali said that the government has worked on a legislative approach that enhances the role of women and their contribution to economic activity, which aligns with the Royal Commission to Modernise the Political System’s outcomes, which called for fair and rightful representation of women in economic activity.

He added that the government has established financing instruments to enhance women's economic contribution by focusing on productive projects in all governorates of the Kingdom, 

The minister pointed out that the Development and Employment Fund provided loans to young men and women in various governorates of the Kingdom, noting that the re-payment rate is "very high, which indicates the success of these projects."