Speeches Shim
Last updated: July 20, 2022
While Jordan has a talented health workforce, until 2018 there was no requirement for healthcare providers to complete continuing professional development to advance their skills, nor a national system to track the renewal of their licenses to practice.
Jordan is currently home to more than 770,000 UNHCR-registered refugees representing 56 nationalities, including approximately 670,000 registered Syrians. At the beginning of the crisis in Syria, Jordan provided UNHCR-registered Syrians fleeing conflict with free access to public sector healthcare services.
Jordan has made considerable progress in improving reproductive, maternal, and child health outcomes. For example, in recent decades, Jordan has achieved a 23 percent reduction in the total fertility rate and cut the under-five mortality rate by almost half. However, significant challenges remain and are exacerbated by a declining national health budget, a growing population, a large influx of refugees due to regional conflicts, old and overcrowded health facilities, and, most recently, the COVID-19 pandemic.
Strong public and health policy is based on accurate data. Since 1990, USAID and the Government of Jordan have collaborated to conduct seven Demographic and Health Surveys (DHS), which provide comprehensive data on fertility, mortality, family planning, maternal and child health, and nutrition as a tool for assessing existing population and health programs and policies.
Jordan faces a dual burden of overnutrition and undernutrition. The Jordan Population and Family Health Survey of 2017-2018 identified a number of startling findings, including that 55 percent of Jordanian women were overweight, and nearly 17 percent of newborns had a low birth weight – one of the highest percentages in the Middle East.
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