Ammon News - Minister of Social Development, Wafaa Bani Mustafa, on Wednesday discussed , with a delegation from the French Development Agency (AFD) and Expertise France (EF), ways to strengthen joint partnership and cooperation in the social field, and achieve the ministry's social services priorities in the projects under the agreement scheduled to signed in the future.

Stressing the importance of the "long" partnership with local and foreign community organizations, Bani Mustafa said the ministry's programs and projects, implemented in cooperation with AFD and EF, will be developed and further directed to serve local community.

Bani Mustafa said the ministry seeks to develop partnership and enhance the positive aspects of the programs implemented in the past to improve social services, boost effectiveness, improve services to the target beneficiaries and programs' quality, in accordance with national priorities.

In addition, Bani Mustafa noted ministry focuses on social protection, seeks to enhance productivity by developing and expanding small projects gradually, and pay attention "fully" to social protection components under an organized framework, she said.

The ministry also focuses on online marketing of productive families' products, which have "high" quality and provide new job opportunities for youth and empower women economically, she added.

Bani Mustafa highlighted ways to benefit from expertise and implement strategies and priorities, in line with the "actual" needs of the target region in which the project is being implemented.

On the issue of gender-based violence, Bani Mustafa said focusing on abused women is "not enough," adding that related programs should be launched in this regard to identify domestic violence causes, noting the importance of focusing on the family to prevent this phenomenon.

For their part, the French delegation referred to their "distinguished" expertise in social protection that was implemented in Jordan, stressing the importance of the new future project with the ministry, which will reflect its priorities and strategy.

The delegation said the new project takes gender into account, helps the ministry in implementing its strategies, promoting gender equality, developing and diversifying services provided to associations based on their needs, launching community development centers, enhancing people with disabilities and the elderly's access, and providing "distinguished" infrastructure to increase services provided to the beneficiaries.

In addition, the delegation voiced desire to sign a new memorandum of understanding (MoU) with the ministry to frame its work in the coming years.