JORDAN NATIONAL URBAN DEVELOPMENT

Example of:

• Innovative Financing

• Private Sector Involvement

Amman, Jordan

Parker, Ronald and Ebrahimi, Farah. “Creating Mixed-Income Communities in Jordan.” OED Précis 127. (Washington, D.C.: World Bank Operations and Evaluations Department, November 1996)

All of the OED Précis’ (evaluative summaries) can be found on the Internet at: http://www.worldbank.org/html/oed/

• Improve shelter for low-income people in the Amman region without government subsidy;
• encourage sound spatial patterns by stimulating urban growth in appropriate locations at lower infrastructure costs than under traditional practice;
• strengthen institutional capacities in Jordan to undertake low-income shelter and urbanization projects;
• help manage the urban growth process by providing basic infrastructure and social services to the old and newly developed low-income areas;
• recover costs of upgrading and expansion of infrastructure facilities from the residents; and
• encourage private sector participation in the supply of low-income housing.

• Upgrading of low-income squatter and slum areas by providing basic infrastructure (including water, sewerage, drainage, and roads) in the Aqaba region;
• residential land development with basic infrastructure in four other regions;
• construction of core housing units;
• mortgage loans from the Jordan Housing Bank for plots and houses;
• social facilities (including schools, clinics, and emergency centers) in the project areas; and
• institutional strengthening of the implementation agencies.

The upgrading component was aimed at improving road access, internal roads, footpaths, water and sewerage, and at constructing vocational training centers at each site. Additionally, homeowners were granted tenure and infill plots were sold for commercial and residential use.

Cost recovery for upgrading and expanding infrastructure through resident service charges was not achieved. This was due, in part, to difficulty collecting service charges higher than those in non-project areas, especially during a period of declining incomes due to the Gulf War.

In implementing public sector enterprise reforms, care should be taken to give private developers equal access to credit. A follow-on program called Housing Finance and Urban Sector Reform seeks to further expand the role of the private sector.