Ammon News - Her Royal Highness Princess Basma Bint Talal, Goodwill Ambassador for the United Nations Population Fund (UNFPA), sponsored, on Wednesday, a ceremony launching the National Population Strategy (2021-2030).

The strategy, launched by the Higher Population Council with the support of UNFPA, complements the council's efforts to identify population priorities and provide an appropriate and supportive environment for population policies and issues in Jordan to exploit the demographic window and contribute to the well-being of citizens.

In a speech, HRH Princess Basma stressed that the launch of this strategy comes at a time when the world is facing two major challenges, namely the coronavirus pandemic and its impact on development efforts, and climate change and natural disasters resulting from it. Her Highness pointed out that the Earth's population is close to 8 billion, 84 percent of whom live in developing countries.

Her Highness said that out of the 232 indicators of the goals of the Global Agenda for Sustainable Development 2030, 100 are directly or indirectly related to the environment. She explained that the goals focus on basic priorities, including controlling population growth to harmonize between population and resources, reduce pressures on natural resources, change human consumption patterns, and establish ownership rights for shared natural resources among individuals, groups and nations.

Her Highness pointed out that Jordan, as it enters its second centenary, needs collective and national action, and cooperation with the international community to face all challenges, indicating that 40 percent of Jordan's population is under 18 years, and investment in them needs a lot of resources, plans and programs.

Princess Basma explained that the success of policies in the sectors of health, education, water, population, environment, food security and fighting poverty is the only way to reach the demographic window, i.e. reducing dependency ratios, increasing the productive age group, and enhancing social protection opportunities.

In turn, the Secretary-General of the Higher Population Council, Abla Amawi, stressed in a speech that the strategy adopts a vision that all residents of the Kingdom enjoy health, social and economic well-being.

The challenges and priorities on which the strategy was based, according to Amawi, focus on four themes: reproductive and sexual health, a socio-economic theme, women and youth, and migration, refuge and crises.

For her part, Director of UNFPA Jordan Office, Inshirah Ahmed, reiterated the Fund's commitment to mainstreaming population dynamics, reproductive health, and gender issues in culture- and norms-sensitive national development strategies.

She said that the conditions that Jordan is going through due to the refugee crisis and the coronavirus pandemic, call for more attention to short-term planning to reduce the increasing pressure on basic services, and long-term planning to achieve the sustainable development goals.

The strategy is a basic reference document that includes the results, outputs and indicators that Jordan aspires to achieve in cooperation with all partners at the sectorial and national levels.