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Ammon News - Secretary-General of the Higher Population Council (HPC), Issa Masarwa, revealed on Monday that the population density in north-western Jordan is exerting a detrimental impact on the environment, agricultural resources, rural economy, and food security.

He stated that a staggering 92 percent of the Kingdom's population resides in this region, while a mere 8 percent inhabits the southern governorates, which constitute over half of the country's landmass.

Masarwa pointed out in a meeting with the Parliamentary Education and Youth Committee that this concentration in the northwest raises the costs of urban management, and is exacerbated by city and village planning systems that allow urban encroachment on fertile lands.

He called for the introduction of legislation delineating land usage, inhibiting alterations, expediting the establishment of new cities in the Badia region, and enhancing investment incentives in the south of the Kingdom.

The Secretary-General expressed concerns that current city and village organization bylaws are undermining sustainable development and exacerbating population distribution imbalance. The bylaws are also detrimental to rural economies, rural women's projects, and food security.

During the meeting, the committee's chairman, Representative Talib Saraireh, emphasized the Kingdom's ongoing demographic shift due to Jordan accepting waves of refugees, expressing apprehension about the impact of these rapid changes on food security.

Masarwa disclosed that the current population of Jordan stands at 11.4 million, with six million people added in the past twenty years alone. He also revealed that non-Jordanians, including Syrian refugees and foreign workers of different nationalities, constitute over 33 percent of the total population.

Children under fifteen years account for 34 percent of the Jordanian population, a figure that rises to 45 percent among Syrians. Further, children under 18 years make up 40 percent of the populace, totaling 4.6 million children.

This indicates a future surge in the number of girls of childbearing age, new families, homes, loss of cultivated lands, entrants to the labor market, unemployment rates, vehicles, and intensified traffic congestion, he said.

In his presentation, Masarwa noted a consistent annual increase in birth numbers, with around 2.7 million births recorded by the Civil Status Department from 2010 to 2022.

The Secretary-General underscored the need to support the 29 percent of Jordanian families who wish to regulate their childbearing but lack access to effective means.

He advocated for extending information and services to these families to empower them to fulfill their reproductive desires in alignment with their resources and circumstances.