Aid well deserved

Given Jordan’s important role in preserving peace and security in the region, its reform and development efforts, the major challenges facing it, the burdens incurred, including its huge contribution to the upkeep of the 1.3 million Syrians who fled their war-torn country and took refuge in the Kingdom, the call for more international support is understood.

The minister of planning and international cooperation, who recently concluded a working visit to Washington, where he met senior US administration officials — from the White House, the State Department and the Ministry of Finance — senior officials of the Appropriations Committee of the House of Representatives and the Senate in the US Congress, and of the US Agency for International Development, which carries out about $1.2-billion-worth of development projects in the Kingdom, had asked for more US assistance next year, as the two countries plan to negotiate and endorse an assistance plan for 2018-2020.

The visit, to renew the memorandum of understanding between the two countries, which governs economic and military assistance to Jordan, also discussed US aid to the Kingdom for 2018. 

Threats that are the outcome of regional and international instability have promoted countries, Jordan included, to spend more on defence.

The Kingdom, surrounded by a destabilising turmoil that created the fertile ground where terrorism and extremism have spawned, is the first line of defence against the spread of these evils, not only to the Middle East but to the world at large.

Only an economically and militarily strong Jordan can serve the cause of peace and security, and that is exactly the message the Kingdom sends to the US and beyond.

Recent data shows that Jordan still has a long way to go in the fight against poverty and unemployment.

If Jordan is to serve regional and international security and peace, and assume the burden of refugees, whose sheer number would scare, and does, strong economies, it needs to be resilient and stable, and for that, its population has to do better economically.

Washington, and other world capitals, sure must appreciate Jordan’s heavy burdens and contribute to alleviating some of them through economic help.