AMMAN (March 28) – The Ministry of Finance, with the support of the USAID Jordan Fiscal Reform Bridge Activity (JFRBA), released the Public Expenditure Perspectives (PEP) 2015 Report. The report is the result of evidence-based analysis by a team of American and Jordanian experts and assesses four key economic sectors: Education, Health, Electricity, and Water.

PEP 2015 is the second joint effort by The General Budget Department and JFRBA to evaluate the budgetary effect of Jordan’s economic drivers. The first report was completed in 2011. PEP 2015 analyzes how government resources produce the services that the people of Jordan need most, and how those services can be most effectively and efficiently delivered.

Jordan continues to achieve impressive results in the education, health, electricity, and water sectors. However, fiscal limitations restrict its ability to make new investments and plan for the future—a situation that has been made more difficult by the influx of refugees from Syria and other external factors. The PEP 2015 recommendations include: gradually increasing education spending levels at the Ministry of Education and improving student-teacher ratios; re-distributing Ministry of Health resources from curative to primary care; developing a National Master Plan for Energy and Electricity for the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources; and expediting the development of the Red-Dead water project for the Ministry of Water and Irrigation.

These recommendations support the goals of Jordan 2025: A National Vision and Strategy as well as USAID’s objectives of strengthening the Government of Jordan’s public finances, creating a more results-oriented budget, and modernizing fiscal planning. The United States government, through USAID, has provided foreign assistance from the American people to Jordan for more than 60 years.