God's peace and blessings be upon you, 

It is with great honor that I submit to you my deepest appreciation, loyalty and gratitude, with my prayers to God Almighty that He blesses you with His protection and safeguard you, an Arab Hashemite leader, and guides your steps towards prosperity and dignity.

I received with deep gratitude and appreciation Your Majesty's letter of 30 October 2002, in which you emphasized the importance of uniting our conviction and aim that “Jordan First” is not just a concept but a national principle engraved in our conscience. Towards this purpose, you issued your royal guidance for the formation of a National Committee, honored by Your Majesty's support, which discussed ways and mechanisms for a plan of action to deliver the concept of “Jordan First” and to reinforce this principle in the daily practices of all Jordanian men and women and in their conscience and souls.

As the National Committee completed a national document, which was presented to Your Majesty on the 18th of this month, in which, in compliance with Your Majesty's directives, the mechanisms and recommendations needed to transform the concept of “Jordan First” into practice and a way of life were defined, the government which undertook the honor of implementing Your Majesty's instructions, is aware that the country and the citizen, and enhancing the living status of the citizen and his ability to participate in his country's development, are the basis in our list of priorities. Therefore, the government is working on defining these mechanisms to present them in a comprehensive plan of action to be adopted by all ministries, departments and concerned bodies, according to announced timetables. In order to implement this mission, an independent unit will be established in the Prime Ministry to follow up the plan and to ensure progress of work in accordance with the agreed upon timetables, assuring Your Majesty that the government will do its utmost to ensure success of this plan of reinforcing the concept of “Jordan First”, and will create all opportunities to implement its noble aims.

Your Majesty,

The important document issued by the Committee has shown the great level of compatibility between its mechanisms and recommendations and the directions stated in the royal decree. Both reflect Your Majesty's vision to build a model Jordan and create a prosperous future for Jordanian men and women, who are proud of their great Arab heritage and who abide by the principles of the Islamic religion and are loyal to their country and the Hashemite leadership.

Allow me, Your Majesty, to present to you the government's timetable and plan of action for “Jordan First”, which is intended to ensure that economical, social and political development reaches all Jordanian men and women, in the city, the village, the badia or campsites. 

First: 

The government regards democracy as the ideal approach to life, and realizes the need to strengthen and reinforce its principles, especially its ideology and practices. The government will work on reinforcing democracy through the following mechanisms:

1. Preparing for parliamentary elections in the spring of 2003, as per Your Majesty's instructions, which will be conducted in absolute transparency, fairness, freedom and smoothness. The government regards this as a national responsibility and is committed to ensuring its success.
2. Entrusting a group of specialists and experts to conduct a thorough study to allow women to reach parliament in the forthcoming elections, and adjust the Elections Law in order to ensure a “women's quota” in parliament, provided that the system is temporary and transitional.
3. Cooperating with the legislative authority in matters that serve the citizens and contribute to the development of Jordan, and providing the necessary support to strengthen the role of the Prime Ministry in legislation and monitoring, to allow it to perform its role in the best manner.
4. Organizing an awareness campaign and providing information and documents that show the achievements realized by our country and the challenges it is facing, in order for citizens to form their opinions towards it.
5. Establishing constructive dialogue and partnership with political parties, and exchanging points of view in matters concerning our country, for the higher benefit of our country and the future of its citizens.
6. Taking necessary procedures to explore the possibility of establishing a constitutional court, in accordance with the constitution.
7. Studying alternatives to consider parliamentarians' years of service as subject to the pension scheme, thus ensuring justice, and enabling members of parliament to perform their parliamentarian duties.

Second: 

Reinforcement of the concept of citizenship and national identity requires joint effort to strengthen principles of justice, equality and equal opportunities. Your Majesty always stressed on combating all forms of corruption, including wasta and favoritism.

The government has directed all its efforts towards combating all forms of corruption and has adjusted all laws and legislations to achieve this noble cause, therefore, the government will entrust a group of experts to study ways to combat all forms of corruption, and favoritism and come up with a national code of ethics to emphasize upstanding values. This will help reinforce the concept of citizenship, loyalty, equality, justice and equal opportunities, and will set standards for administrative monitoring on performance. The government will be the first to abide by this charter.

Third: 

Curtailing poverty and unemployment and increasing productivity of the women and men of our country in their different fields form one of our most important national priorities, and in this context, the government will work on:

1. Implementation of the Socio-Economic Transformation Program to ensure positive results on the quality and standard of life of all Jordanians. We will work on increasing national training programs to provide opportunities for Jordanian youth to gain required experience to raise the quality of their production. We will also provide necessary resources for the different programs to enhance productivity, in order to encourage the citizen to initiate, implement and to deliver. The government will rely on a database that will provide the necessary information needed to give Jordanians the priority in job recruitment as part of the government's efforts to control the work market. The government will also continue its rehabilitation of medical centers in the different governorates and will provide staff training, and supply the centers with the newest equipment in order to offer citizens the best medical care.

2. Implement strategic dialogue to combat poverty in order to deliver financial aid to needy families, through its reliance on the supplementary income program to reach the targeted sectors as shown in the poverty maps that are being generated. The government is also working on employing the referred to databases in order to give priority to training and employment of the underprivileged, to enable them get out of the direct aid circle and to become productive.

Fourth:

 The government realizes that enhancing the standard of life for citizens is not just through providing basic services, such as water, education, training, health, and others, but through ensuring that these services are delivered at the right time and with the appropriate efficiency, effectiveness, and quality. The government will, therefore, work on:

1. Allowing special attention to the conduct and principles of public services and realizing the necessity to promote relationship built on mutual respect between the civil servants and the public.

2. Strengthening and supporting Your Majesty's initiative to request administrative governors to continue following up on implementation of governmental projects, by developing human resources in developmental units in the governorates to enable them to play key roles in speedily implementing the developmental projects, and to ensure compatibility of these projects with the developmental needs, and to encourage interaction with the local communities to increase productivity.

3. Providing accurate information to all citizens through spokespersons in all ministries, and endorsing the e-government project which is being implemented in accordance to the presented strategies.

4. Protecting the environment, and ensuring availability of environmental health and safety requirements to preserve the country's resources and to support its endeavor. A new Environmental Law has, therefore, been drafted and a new ministry will be formed to attend to Jordan's environmental issues.

5. Completing reform programs in municipalities since most basic services are provided to citizens through them, especially following the success in merging municipalities. Preparations will be made to hold the municipal elections in July 2003 in a framework that will contribute to enforcing the democratic process, and which will ensure that representatives of local communities along with experts and specialists are held responsible for serving the local communities.

Fifth: 

The youth sector enjoys Your Majesty's keen interest, as youth represent the hope for Jordan's promising future. The government has realized this interest in Your Majesty's discussions of ways to deliver the motto “Jordan First” to Jordanian youth. We will attach the needed attention to provide the youth with access to the latest developments in science, knowledge, sports, culture, art and creativity through:

1. Encouraging private investment in sports clubs and promoting principles of professionalism and excellence amongst the youth. 

2. Laying the infrastructure to support sports, cultural and youth movements and to continue establishing youth centers, sports fields and cultural centers in different parts of Jordan.

3. The National Fund to support development and improvement of services provided to the youth.

Sixth: 

Development of human resources is a key element in achieving sustainable socio-economic development, and is a factor in building the future. This sector was discussed in the economical reclusions that were held under Your Majesty's patronage, which resulted in drawing a national strategy for developing human resources. This strategy emphasized the importance of giving a major part of public investment to educate and train the Jordanian citizen to become more qualified to deal with the requirements of the modern developmental pattern of Jordan. This can only be achieved through stressing on the importance of developing the educational system to help the human aspect change from a passive receiver of information to an innovative person able to think creatively and to deliver.

The government will work on implementing the recommendations and mechanisms and reform procedures that will contribute to the strengthening of the “Jordan First” concept which was mentioned in the document with regard to education and living of students, through:

1. Implementing the national program for educational reform at a cost of approximately (430) million Jordanian dinars over the next five years. The program is aimed at developing the educational system in all its dimensions, through teacher training, developing and upgrading the curricula, building schools and adding classrooms which provide the appropriate educational environment, computerizing the education cycle and introducing electronic learning.

2. Adopting special procedures to improve curricula in schools and universities to include principles of the constitution, history of the Jordanian State, its ideology and its constitutional monarchy system, as well as reinforcing the principles and conduct of dialogue, creativity and initiatives of the people of Jordan.

3. Studying the most successful methods to meet market needs in Jordan, through coordination and cooperation between the Higher Council for Education and Vocational Training, universities and the private sector institutions.

4. Finding the appropriate mechanism to build bridges with university and college students to strengthen their participation in the public life, at present and in the future, and to enhance their role in decision making.

5. Creating a special fund in the King Abdullah Development Fund to support creativity and initiatives of students. The concerned ministries will lay standards to discover talents in schools, universities and colleges to provide equal opportunities for students to benefit from this royal fund.

Seventh:

 Reinforcing democracy in the modern Jordanian society that we aspire for the future of Jordan requires that the local political parties are capable, efficient and responsible so as to participate with public institutions in the elevation, development and progress of our country. “Jordan First” truly represents the role that your people aspire from its political parties, to adopt this concept as regulator, and adopt its methods and actions so that its political, economical, development and social programs reflect the aspirations of all citizens and in particular those of the youth sector which represent the majority of the society, and who are eager to learn.

In response to Your Majesty's wishes, and in harmony with the document's recommendations, the government will be responsible for setting an active and productive dialogue with the political parties, to come up with a clear vision about their current and future roles. For this reason, a committee of political and legal experts and specialists will be entrusted to introduce amendments to the Political Parties Law, to ensure the end of singularity and enhance harmonization between them. The amended law will also strengthen the parties' transparency and democratic practices, and help them develop and progress so that its performance is in line with the aspirations and objectives they are entrusted with.

Eighth:

The government realizes the important role of the professional unions in modern civil society and therefore attaches all due importance to support the unions and civil society institutions and grant them their privileges as specified in the law in order to assist them in shouldering their duties and professional responsibilities. The government reaffirms its respect for the role the unions play in reinforcing professionalism and their participation in the economic development, and in protecting the rights of their associates. We will continue to support the unions' role in order to develop professionalism and in safeguarding the rights of their associates. And in response to the concept “Jordan First” which stresses the principle of cooperation between all society's institutions, the government will conduct a dialogue between the associations and the public institutions, and will form a task force to come up with a clear vision of the relationship between all associations on the one hand, and the relationship between the associations and the government and the civil society on the other, through a comprehensive review of the related laws, that will ensure respect of its role.

Ninth:

Our modern world is undergoing major openness and development in the telecommunications technology, which demands an increase in our efforts to reach a national media that expresses Jordan's identity, delivers its message and reflects its true image on the national and international levels. As government regards the media sector as an important aspect of the development process, the Higher Council for Media was formed to assist the government in defining a media strategy and organizing the media sector. The government will work on implementing Your Majesty's vision through:

1. Creating a media system that is compatible with the policy of openness in the economic, social and cultural fields in Jordan, which reflects the national identity of Jordan and its vision.

2. Encouraging pluralism and respect of other's opinions.

3. Promoting professionalism, creativity and emphasis on excellence and innovation.

4. Independence of administrative media to allow the private sector to invest in this field.

5. Reviewing related laws, developing media integrity, concentrating on training and acknowledging technical changes in the telecommunications sector.

6. Encouraging the private sector to invest in the different aspects of media, providing a competitive environment that supports its helping provide specialized media cadre able to make the required positive change.

Tenth: 

Due to its belief in the important role and independent and honest judicial 
system, which is supported by the appropriate qualifications, expertise, and infrastructure, the government has commenced a wide-scoped plan to develop this system, drafted in cooperation with the Higher Judicial Council. The government will continue to implement this plan through:

1. Providing necessary funds to build palaces of justice in governorates to provide judicial services to local residents.

2. Computerizing the judicial system's services.

3. Implementing a program of familiarizing judges with latest developments of economical laws, in particular those relating to trade, telecommunications, technology and intellectual property rights.

Eleventh: 

Achieving Your Majesty's vision for a modern Jordan, that provides good, just and compatible living for its citizens, calls on public and private sectors to work together as partners to achieve positive economic growth. Fair social development provides an opportunity to increase productivity and paves the way to get out of the circle of handouts into productive and rewarding work. To achieve this, the government will work on the following:

1. Continuing to set rules for dialogue, discussion and partnership with the private sector in order to raise national economic competitiveness and to increase productivity and growth.

2. Providing the appropriate judicial, legal and administrative environment to promote private investments, in order for it to be the catalyst for the industrial, trade, technical, export and service economy.

3. Encouraging the private sector to initiate and invest in national projects, and give equal opportunities to Jordanians. Investing in knowledge, research and development in modern management systems which will enhance competitiveness in Jordanian institutions, companies and industries.

4. Encouraging the private sector to invest in different initiatives that target the development of the governorates and increase their participation in the national economy.

Your Majesty,

While the government in submitting to Your Majesty its plan of action to deliver the concept and mechanisms of “Jordan First” to all citizens, assures Your Majesty its determination to serve the country and protect its resources. The government considers all civil society institutions, including the political parties, professional unions and national organizations partners in the national work

The government affirms its support to the committees that will be entrusted with discussing the mechanisms that were mentioned in the “Jordan First” document, and will work on implementing the procedures relating to reinforcing democracy and organizing the role of the political parties, unions, civil society institutions, universities, media and telecommunications.

We hope that our plan of action is an actual translation of the concept and mechanism of “Jordan First”, so that our country, in all its diversity becomes a unified social fiber enriched by our different views and orientations, with the sole concern of serving Jordan of which we are proud to belong to, work for and protect its soil.

May God keep you as father and leader of this country, and all it stands for in freedom, justice and democracy. Your visions and instructions will remain a guide for all those who belong to this country, and who are always willing to build a stronger Jordan, which will always remain as a strong ally to the Arab and Muslim nation and a defender of its values and its just causes. 

May God's blessings be upon you.

Your loyal servant
Eng. Ali Abul Ragheb
Prime Minister



Amman, 18 Shawal, 1423 Hijri
Corresponding to 22 October 2002 AD