GPSA projects

Country: Jordan
Sector: : Local government, Grievance redress mechanisms
Executing Agency: Motivators for training (MOTIVE)
Grant Amount: $144,959
Implementation dates: Approval date – 31 Oct 2021, Closing Date – 20 Dec 2024

Low levels of citizen trust in local government and weak municipal capacity continue to be major barriers to institutional strengthening and effective service delivery that responds to the needs of both Jordanians and Syrian refugees. Participatory processes at the municipal level are very limited, leading to minimal citizen engagement which impedes rebuilding trust. Often, participation excludes critical and vulnerable stakeholder groups, worsening existing inequality in access, agency, and power. Youth continue to experience barriers to mobility while women still face gender norms that prevent them from fully participating economically, socially, and politically. Refugees experience difficulty accessing basic services and employment given their legal status which is also a factor in their marginalization.

The World Bank Jordan Municipal Services and Social Resilience Project (MSSRP-P161982) supports the Government of Jordan’s commitment towards an integrated approach that addresses both the humanitarian needs arising out of the recent crisis, as well as medium-term development needs with an aim to rebuild Jordanian host communities. It aims to mitigate drivers of social tensions caused by the local impact of the influx of refugees at the municipal level through strengthening the processes of municipal service delivery, with a focus on inclusion, transparency and accountability in municipal decision making. Based on the findings of the first phase of the GPSA collaboration with MSSRP, grievance mechanisms (GM) already have a presence and function within municipalities. Yet, the systems are informal, and lack accessibility for women and vulnerable groups. Through MSSRP, rudimentary grievance redress systems have been put in place in municipalities participating in the project including appointing a GM focal point, recording grievances in logbooks, and tracking resolution of cases by the central Project Management Unit (PMU). Moreover, the systems are underutilized, responsiveness needs to be improved, and the overall awareness and value of the system amongst a range of stakeholders, is low. Users, particularly women, refugees, and youth, have identified several constraints to accessing the systems, thereby not addressing exclusion.

The first phase of this grant, equally supported by the Human Rights Inclusion and Empowerment Trust Fund, concluded in 2019 that there were many challenges to effective participation of civil society and the ability to exercise social accountability within the municipal structure. Structural barriers and lack of standardization within municipalities as well as limitations on knowledge of the HRBA remain major barriers to effective transparency and social accountability. The social accountability and participatory tools such as the human rights-based checklist, community scorecard, and GM were well received by the selected municipalities and contractor and the second phase will build upon these successes.

The MOTIVE team is working with local stakeholders in 4 pilot municipalities selected for the second phase, Dhlail (continued from the first phase), Karak, Jerash and West Irbid to increase inclusivity and effectiveness of participatory processes, through enhanced social accountability measures and to capture learning from these efforts to be integrated into similar contexts through knowledge sharing across institutions including the World Bank. The activity will bring together municipal actors and civil society, especially marginalized groups, to collaborate on ensuring the GM and other participatory processes are effective and accessible as mechanisms for ensuring accountability. The specific objectives of this activity are to:

1. Increase the capacity of municipal actors to integrate Human Rights Based Approach in a practical manner through the development of an accessible, inclusive and effective GM.
2. Enhance the ability of marginalized groups to engage in planning and decision-making, claim their rights and hold municipal institutions accountable through participatory processes including Grievance Mechanisms.

To ensure the political will is present and to give the best chance for sustainability of this project, it is important to recognize who needs to approve and support a systematized grievance redress mechanism. The Executive Managers and the Mayors of each municipality will both need to approve and back the project, the municipal council will follow-up on the mechanism and serve as a source of accountability as elected officials; and municipal staff would use the grievance redress mechanism back-end internally in their regular day-to-day work, and citizens would use the system front-end on a daily basis to register grievances.

MOTIVE will work closely with municipal leadership in the four municipalities to increase the inclusion of women and vulnerable groups in planning and decision-making, in claiming their rights and in holding municipal institutions accountable through participatory processes including Grievance Mechanisms. The HRBA Checklist developed in the pilot phase of this project will be a helpful resource for municipalities, as all four are in need of practically and meaningfully considering the needs of vulnerable groups in municipal planning.

Following the development and piloting of a systematic grievance redress system, and then the incorporation of feedback and lessons learned, the objective of the project is to have a systematic, simple, and user-friendly GRM available for citizens to be able to register complaints easily and municipal staff to be able to receive, organize, and monitor complaints they receive from citizens. The product will also have the ability for municipal staff to communicate to citizens when the complaint has been addressed. The GRM platform to be developed is scalable, so that it can be replicated and added to the rest of the municipalities engaged with MSSRP, so they can also participate and adopt the use of the GRM platform.

More information coming soon.

More information coming soon.