Jordan: Foreign NGOs secretly lobby to fire local staff despite Covid-19 protection law (Middle East Eye)

Middle East Eye published an article stating that after implementing a strict lockdown in early 2020, the Jordanian government introduced several temporary measures to ease the blow of the pandemic on the country’s already-faltering economy. A letter by a group called “the Jordan INGO Forum” in November 2021 and signed by CEOs and country directors of 31 international NGOs, urged authorities to allow them to bypass the order to dismiss Jordanian members of staff. The INGOs argue that they are being forced to keep paying employees on fixed-term contracts who would be released when their project ends. Like its neighbors, Jordan’s economy has been hit hard by Covid-19. An IFPRI paper published in 2020 estimated that job losses during Jordan’s aggressive lockdown were over 20 percent, while average household income fell by one-fifth.