Ammon News - AMMONNEWS - Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Imad Al-Fakhoury said on Saturday that a national strategy for combating poverty and social protection is under way with a participatory approach between public and private sector institutions and civil society organisations in the Kingdom.

Fakhoury was addressing the third meeting of the steering committee tasked with updating the poverty-alleviation and social protection strategy, which he chaired along with Minister of Social Development, Hala Latouf, and Awqaf and Religious Affairs Minister, Abdel Nasser Abul Basal.

The planning minister referred to mechanisms adopted to obtain feedback and address the needs of citizens, taking into consideration the multidimensional aspects of poverty and its geographic and spatial distribution and areas of concentration.

Fakhoury stressed the importance of social protection and empowerment programmes that can be provided to integrate the plan with other national strategies, including the Jordan Economic Stimulation Plan 2018-2022, the National Strategy for Human Resources Development, the National Employment Program and the initiatives contained in the Jordan 2025 document.

"The Council of Ministers had directed the ministries of planning and social development to modernize and restructure the national strategy to combat poverty and ensure social protection, and introduce the concept of social protection as a cornerstone for increasing national capacity to combat poverty and raise the living standards of citizens within the categories that need support," he pointed out.

Fakhoury said the Syrian refugee crisis has a key impact on poverty and the social protection system and that its needs to be evaluated and analyzed.

For her part, the social development minister presented steps to the poverty-alleviation and social protection strategy, which, she said, will take place through defining and agreeing on the key areas of the strategy and holding consultations on its contents before final approval.