Under the slogan “Vision of a King”, King Abdullah II Fund for Development celebrates its 20th anniversary to coincide with the celebrations of the Kingdom’s centennial of foundation.
In this great national occasion, KAFD launched a youth project titled The Path of The Centennial”, aiming to introduce the political, economic and social history of Jordan to the youth, assist them to be aware of their roles in carrying the message and continue to build their country and establish the concepts of patriotism in their hearts.
The connotations of the state’s centennial and its noble meanings are present in a set of KAFD’s projects which were developed to cope with the celebration that will continue till the end of the year, including “Talent in Community Service” project and “ the App Challenge” contest.
· Foundation and the Royal Patronage
KAFD was founded with a royal decree, as a result to what his Majesty King Abdullah II bin Al Hussein felt and concluded during his tours and meetings with the citizens in their areas. He saw that there was a great need to establish development and productive projects to contribute to the improvement of citizens’ economic and social living conditions.
In a letter that His Majesty directed to the Prime Minister in late 2001: “I touched the enthusiasm of farmers in Ajloun and the fishermen in Aqaba to give and be productive, if support means and necessary technical advice were provided. I was glad to see the passion of the military retirees to train on modern computer skills and the potential of the bedouin and rural areas citizens to seize the opportunities which would develop their knowledge through online learning” HM King Abdullah II.
KAFD rapidly became an umbrella for supporting developmental, social, educational and cultural efforts, in addition, to Catalyzing comprehensive development which relies on projects that employ the citizen’s potentials in production and creativity.
· Noble Goals and Valuable Missions
King Abdullah II Fund for Development aims to contribute to the establishment of citizens’ pioneer projects, support programs and activities which aim at increasing the national productivity, encourage scientific, cultural, sports, educational and social activities to improve talents and provide motivations for the creative citizens each in their field.
KAFD carries out a number of missions in order to achieve its goals, in particular: establish and grow developmental productive projects in governorates, provide means of support and necessary technical advice, establish institutions, companies or contribute to their establishment, contribute to vocational qualification of citizens, assist gifted students in all educational stages, support scientific activities and support communities in a way that leads to development and improvement of their living conditions.
KAFD’s projects represent strategic pioneer service stations that simulates the progress of the youth’s journey through providing qualitative services that are suitable for the stage that they are in, whether they are university or school students, job seekers, future leaders’ employees, creative thinkers or researchers.
With time, the umbrella of KAFD became broader to include a number of sectors and fields within four main axes: capacity building, training and employment, agriculture, small business financing, tourism, heritage restoration, information technology, infrastructure, promotion of dialogue culture and democratic empowerment.
KAFD works in accordance with clear institutional values where sustainability is the main value. Some projects are still being implemented for 16 years. Among these values are: governance, accessibility to target groups, innovation, leadership, development, productivity enhancement, entrepreneurship, creativity and diversity.
· Entrepreneurship Programs
King Abdullah II Fund for Development was inspired by the royal visions to develop the competitiveness of the Jordanian youth to enter the job market and size employment opportunities, through making them familiar with the job market and train them on technical and job specific skills, in addition to on the job training. Around 200,000 direct and indirect job opportunities were provided within the Program “Employability Development”.
KAFD invested in youth potentials through providing the necessary technical, financial and logistical support for excellence and innovation and raising their capacity to be involved in their local communities. It provided around 92,000 direct and indirect job opportunities for youth target groups within “Entrepreneurship” Program.
KAFD builds on the knowledge of youth and develops their capacities and skills to cope with the modern requirements. “Capacities and raising productivities” Program provided approximately 37,000 direct and indirect job opportunities to build the youth capacities and provide them with technical skills. It provides the tools to assist the youth to apply the concept active citizenship and disseminate and promote civil values and practices, especially the ones indicated in the discussion papers of His Majesty. KAFD provided around 130,000 direct and indirect job opportunities within “national education and community awareness”.
Aiming to find a youthful platform through which youth in all governorates can interact with national policies and youth initiatives in the fields of economic, social and cultural development, “All Jordan Youth Commission” as one of the connection points between the public and private sectors institutions, civil society and the youth, was launched as an initiative where it succeeded in providing around 2 million direct and indirect job opportunities.
· Transforming Challenges into Opportunities
King Abdullah II Fund for Development continued its work during the exceptional conditions of the Covid-19 Pandemic, believing that “transforming challenges into opportunities” is possible. It continued executing its projects and programs through the available technical tools to keep communication channels open with the target groups and sustain the role performed in different development fields.
KAFD participated through “All Jordan Youth Commission in voluntary campaigns to apply public safety measures during Tawjihi national exams and recent parliamentary elections.They also executed a series of voluntary campaigns to sanitize mosques, churches and shops as well as participating in medication distribution activities.
In support of the national efforts, KAFD supported a Jordanian medical team to manufacture an emergency ventilator, in addition to supporting “AMAN” app.
· 20 years of achievements
With a royal vision led by hope to increase available opportunities to achieve comprehensive development in Jordan. Since its establishment in 2001, KAFD started with the idea of Catalyzing development through training and qualifying a number of military retirees in the fields of modern computer skills and English language education and starting agricultural projects (such as virgin olive oil compressors) to create job opportunities in governorates.
After that point, creative initiatives, projects and programs followed, KAFD launched knowledge stations in 2002, school nutrition program (Vitamins Initiative), organizing the first Jordanian youth forum during 2003, then the second Jordanian youth forum in 2004 whose recommendations formed the corner stone in launching quality programs and projects, among them: Undergraduate Project Funding, establishment of career guidance and alumni offices, support and registration of patents and the grants for outstanding student who are not capable financially.
The year 2005 witnessed the launching of the program “your road to your profession” which was applied in six universities before it was developed into “training for employment” (Darb). A TV talk show titled “the talk is ours” was launched to provide a platform for the youth to express their opinions and thoughts”.
In 2007, King Abdullah II Award for Youth Innovation and Achievement was launched to implement one of the (World Economic Forum) WEF’s recommendations which was hosted by KAFD. It aimed at awarding Arab community entrepreneurs who created innovative solutions to address their communities’ challenges.
In order to develop creative skills and leadership capacity building, KAFD started a project for developing civil service in 2010 to qualify the employees of the public sector in the areas of leadership and institutions administration.
In regard to encouraging the creation of electronic games industry as a promising sector which helps in creating self- employment opportunities and set Jordan on the gaming map in the region. KAFD launched the Summit for Mobile Games Industry in 2011, gaming lab and the App Challenge.
In 2012, KAFD launched in AL Qasr province “Juthoor” National Afforestation Project which is considered the largest afforestation project since the 1970s as it covers 20,000 Donums involving 25,000 volunteers for planting.
To provide Jordanians with professional consultations, training, employment, entrepreneurship and volunteer work, KAFD created ForUs portal in cooperation with local and regional partners in 2016 to be the comprehensive national portal for professional development in the kingdom.
In 2017. KAFD launched Counter-Extremism thoughts Project to target the ideologies of extremism. In 2018 the Mobile Gaming Lab was launched to raise the awareness of the youth on the importance of the gaming industry and the role of technology to reach remote areas.
2019 witnessed the launching of several projects to increase the beneficiaries to coincide with Jordan’s celebrations of the 20th anniversary of His Majesty King Abdullah II Accession to the throne. Media Literacy Project was launched aiming to build youth’s qualitative capacities in dealing with information sources and media means and supporting their abilities of self-expression. In addition to, the fellowship program with parliament “House of Representatives” was launched aiming to translate the royal visions into political empowerment of youth to create practical programs and gain knowledge about the legislative and supervisory roles of “House of Representatives”
KAFD launched the financing window for applied scientific researches which target researchers, innovators, creative thinkers and persons with pioneer ideas in the fields of applied scientific researches or those who found applicable solutions to their communities’ problems. In addition to , “The Social entrepreneurship project” which was launched aiming to create a sustainable development in all fields and invest in youth potential to contribute to creating development and finding positive change engines in the society.
· Development projects and creative initiatives
Development projects seek to motivate and improve the economic environment, focusing on local communities to establish income job opportunities generating projects and to promote the culture of initiative and participate in its productive activities.
In 2003, KAFD contributed to building investment partnerships and encourage tourism of conferences and exhibitions on the eastern coast of the Dead Sea, through establishing hotels and resorts such as King Hussein bin Talal Convention Center, Hilton Hotel and Samara Resort to transform the area into a conference destination and encourage the private sector to build more hotels and resorts.
Aiming to provide sustainable financial services to small income generating businesses, National Microfinance Bank was established to disseminate the culture of micro financing of startups in 2004. The same year witnessed the implementation of several programs to develop and grow the agricultural sector, in order to produce high quality crops and create centers of development in areas in need for empowerment and job opportunities provision.
To contribute to enhancing the tourism and hotel sector through qualifying hoteliers and promoting the vocational education culture among youth and training them on culinary art, Royal Academy of Culinary Arts was established in 2008. In the South, many projects were established to provide infrastructure to attract investments in Maa’n Governorate including the Industrial Rawda area, the Pilgrims Oasis, the Residential Complex for Female Students and Solar Energy Project.
KAFD launched and established several institutions to achieve diverse goals. In 2010, Jordan Heritage Revival Company was established to provide job opportunities for citizens of governorates, support tourism in the kingdom and produce products to revive the Jordanian heritage. In the same year, Oasis500 was established under KAFD umbrella. Aiming to train, qualify and encourage entrepreneurs to register startups in the technology and creative industry sector. SPICA Media Production Company was founded to encourage film making in Jordan, where Agricultural Marketing and Processing Company was founded to develop and grow the agriculture sector through finding agricultural models able to export to unconventional markets.
The year 2011 represented a new era in launching several projects, such as Jordan Company for promoting heritage products to develop handicrafts, traditional food productions and promoting them under (Urdon) Trademark. Paralleled with programs and initiatives, KAFD provided 30,000 direct and indirect job opportunities in the field in improving the economic environment and job opportunities generating projects through development projects.
· We will continue to achieve development
King Abdullah II Fund for Development moves forward with its outstanding journey of achievements, based on an integrated strategy which expresses a clear vision to upgrade its programs and expand and diversify the beneficiaries group, sustain communication with communities’ citizens as active partners in the development process as they will be able to deal with challenges efficiently and positively. This is how “Vision of a King” wanted and embodied looking at the future to prepare to cross it with great confidence.