The Current Plan’s Features and Pillars

Jordan’s Third National Plan for the years (2016-2018) provides ten new commitments in accordance with the Open Government Partnership principles.

Regarding the principle of access to information, the plan offers a major commitment which reflects the Jordanian government’s pursuit to strengthen the legislative framework governing access to information. It also provides commitments to enhance the facilities available for persons with disabilities to better use information related to the justice sector, and to apply a policy for providing public data.    

To reinforce the principle of public participation, the Jordanian Government commits to strengthen the framework governing freedom of the media to promote aspects of citizen participation in the public life, and the independent role of the media in disseminating reports and coverage related to government performance. In addition, the Government has made a commitment to issue regulations and instructions to implement the Decentralization Law by holding for the first time Decentralization elections in 2017 paving the way for decentralized planning which will enable the decision-making process to become a purely local one that responds to the citizens’ local priorities. Jordan also presents another new commitment related to the development of transparent and participatory policies regarding climate change.

Concerning the principle of accountability, the Government of Jordan made several commitments in this Third National Plan which include the launch and enhancement of a complaints registration system and follow-up mechanisms to deal with complaints in a serious manner and to refer them to the judiciary, when necessary. The system receives complaints related to violations of citizen rights and those related to governmental services. The Government also made commitments to adopt the principle of budget disclosure in accordance with international standards, and to promote transparency and financial disclosure as part of its efforts to enable citizen participation in evaluation and audit of government spending decisions.

To expand the use of technology and innovation for improved transparency and service delivery, the Government of Jordan provided two new commitments to develop healthcare services and to automate the healthcare sector through electronic linkage. The second commitment also stipulates the development of an interactive observatory forum for citizens to monitor the implementation of the government's plans and the progress accomplished.

Challenges related to the Open Government Partnership Initiative addressed by the Third National Plan 2016-2018

Jordan’s new commitments stipulated in the Third National Plan, prepared by the Government of Jordan, intersect with a large number of challenges facing the Open Government Partnership Initiative. The Plan highlights the various commitments, whether individually or as a group, addressing the following:

• Enhance the overall credibility of the government’s performance;
• Increase access to information;
• Provide judicial services and access to information concerning use of the justice system;
• Strengthen media and public freedoms;
• Strengthen public credibility;
• Combat corruption;
• Achieve citizen popular participation in decision-making related to their daily lives, including those related to the services they receive;
• Direct and local monitoring of the decision making process;
• Improve the bulk of health services provided to citizens and facilitate access to information;
• Strengthen citizen control and monitoring and improve the level of public services;
• Promote transparency and accountability practices in public sector institutions;
• Encourage fiscal reform;
• Achieve safer communities addressing dangers, disasters and environmental risks.

Goals of the Third National Plan

The Third National Plan defines a number of goals that the Government of Jordan seeks to achieve through the commitments made, which can be summarized as follows:

• Establish stable policies and promote the use of international best practices and standards to address all commitments;
• Promote the facilities available for citizens to access government-provided services; 
• Consolidate the pillars of participatory approach in governmental institutions’ work and planning process;
• Entrench the complaints mechanism and deal with complaints in a serious manner to increase citizen confidence in such mechanisms;
• Promote a decentralized decision-making process for development and economic matters, and make government performance more transparent;
• Enhance the transparency and stability within public system procedures and government performance by applying disclosure and facilitating access to information.
• Encourage community-based economy growth, stimulate an incubator for innovation and leadership to develop new services and financial resources, and enable civil society to adopt effective programmatic planning by using open data resources.