Project News

September to October, 2016

The Project conducted a baseline survey in the communities as part of its impact evaluation in collaboration with the Ministry of Health (MOH) and Department of Statistics (DOS). The survey targeted married women of reproductive ages (between 15 and 49 years old) in eight villages in Irbid governorate. To measure project impact, the survey set four focus village health centers (VHCs) as "intervention group" and the other four VHC were selected as "control group" from areas outside of the 14 focus VHCs. The Project will conduct an endline survey in the last term of the second year of the Project to measure the impact of the Project by comparison between before and after intervention activities.

The survey team consists of two supervisors from DOS and twelve researchers. The team collected data at the villages for ten days by receiving technical supports from DOS. The Japanese experts joined the study and had a look at current situations in the eight targets areas. For example, communities in Jordan Valley in Irbid are comparatively poor and most young people go to cities to looking for jobs. As a result, the survey team found many houses were vacant or have aged family members.

Overall findings are 1) many nuclear families in Irbid, 2) mean number of children per household was 3.5, and 3) women do participate in decision making. These trends are far different from the situation in Southern Jordan where JICA had been supported for a long time before this project. Moreover, it is important to note that the family structure of Jordan has shifted from the types that are typical of a developing country to the types of a developed country. The preliminary analysis will be ready by the end of October 2016.

Training by the Counterpart

Morning Feedback to the Researchers

Interview with a Married Woman

Researchers working in the Field