In partnership with the Jordanian Cooperatives Corporation (JCC), PROSPECTS supported the development of a national strategy and cooperative law, enhanced the capacity of the JCC and provided services to cooperatives in Jordan. 

In 2020, Jordan had nearly 1,500 registered cooperatives with more than 140,000 members, yet, for more than 20 years, the country had lacked a comprehensive cooperatives strategy. The economic and social contributions made by cooperatives were not very clear or well understood. There was also legal and administrative ambiguity, financial challenges, inefficient management structures, and a lack of awareness about shared cooperative principles and values. Although Jordan had a national body responsible for cooperatives – the Jordan Cooperatives Corporation (JCC) – this was fulfilling a largely administrative function, rather than supporting cooperative capacity and the practice of shared values. Cooperative initiatives were more common in the past, having first emerged in the 1960s in the form of rural credit societies, which provided farmers with credit, seeds and other inputs. The influence of cooperatives gradually diminished over time, as the State took on more of an ownership role. Revitalizing the cooperative sector therefore required a re-examination of the cooperative-State relationship and placing cooperative principles at the centre of cooperative operations.

Despite structural weaknesses, high unemployment and low job creation in the country, opportunities existed for cooperatives to become established and extend their services. For instance, they came to play a role in incorporating Syrian refugees into the labour market by issuing non-employer-specific work permits for the agriculture sector, in coordination with the Ministry of Labour. They also became a channel for donor funded projects to reach Syrian refugees and host communities with livelihood support, such as starting up home based businesses.

Nevertheless, the cooperative movement was still relatively weak, so the PROSPECTS team focused on strengthening the movement at large, while continuing to support cooperatives’ role as service providers and intermediaries in the refugee response. Action was taken both upstream and downstream, following an incremental approach that responded to needs and opportunities based on initial assessments of cooperatives’ capacities. PROSPECTS also built on the ILO’s history of working in Jordan and adapted the approaches of previous donor-funded projects that worked with agriculture cooperatives to serve Syrian refugees and host community members, mainly by facilitating the issuance of work permits. At the macro (policy) level, PROSPECTS supported the development of a national strategy, action plan and related review of the cooperative law. At the meso level, it enhanced the capacity of the JCC through training and support and used cooperatives’ presence on the ground to raise awareness of labour rights among refugee and host community agriculture workers. At the micro level, services were provided through cooperatives, including through the Agricultural Guidance and Employment Units (AGEUs). These operate as employment centres within high-performing agriculture cooperatives, offering career guidance and job-matching services that reflect the daily and seasonal characteristics of employment in the sector. Cooperatives were also an entry point for the provision of training in labour rights, OSH and social protection in the agriculture sector, as they had been a principal participant in consultations on the development of an agriculture workers bylaw (2020). A network of trained cooperative representatives came to act as an extended field presence for the ILO under PROSPECTS, supporting regular farm visits and training for agriculture workers.

In 2019–2020, to inform the scope of its interventions in the cooperative sector, the ILO conducted assessments of the sector, made field visits to farms in the three largest refugee-hosting governorates and engaged in social dialogue with the Ministry of Labour, Ministry of Agriculture, the JCC and farmer associations.

By mid-2020, the ILO and the JCC had signed a memorandum of understanding to develop a National Cooperative Strategy, which set out a collective vision and identified priorities for action. This was launched by the Government in 2021. The strategy (2021–2025) provided a policy tool and included an action plan focused on building the capacity of cooperatives and the JCC. One of the key outcomes of the strategy was the revision of the Cooperative Law and its alignment with the ILO Promotion of Cooperatives Recommendation, 2002 (No. 193). Key legislation changes proposed included increased representation of cooperatives on the JCC board, tax exemptions for cooperatives and allowing non-Jordanians (including refugees) to join and form cooperatives. As of late 2024, however, these proposals had not been accepted, owing to the sensitivity around taxation and non-nationals joining cooperatives as full members.

In parallel to this work upstream, the ILO used its technical expertise to develop a national training institution within the JCC. Prior to its engagement with PROSPECTS, the JCC’s main focus was on administrative procedures but with the programme’s support under the strategy and the associated action plan, it refocused its efforts on promoting cooperative principles and building the capacities of cooperative members. The ILO’s participatory approach to the development of the strategy, the JCC’s training of trainers and adaptation of COOP tools (Think.COOP, My.COOP and Start.COOP) to the local context (including translation into Arabic) facilitated a change in understanding of the role cooperatives and cooperative apex organizations play in local and national development. As a mark of progress, the ITCILO (International Training Centre of the ILO) had to translate and adapt its platform and tools to accommodate a surge in demand inspired by the JCC’s engagement in cooperative development. This demand came from cooperative institutions in both Iraq and Lebanon.

In addition to the standard COOP tools, the JCC and the ILO developed and piloted an occupational safety and health (OSH) tool and a tool on the role of cooperatives in eliminating child labour. Both responded to decent-work deficits that were evident in the agriculture sector and the role of cooperatives at a local level to help address them. The PROSPECTS team and the JCC facilitated training for Lebanese, Syrian and Iraqi cooperative institutions and their members, using COOP training tools to build a network of COOP trainers at the national level. Outside of PROSPECTS, the JCC shared its knowledge and experiences with Morocco as it revised its own strategy. Moreover, the JCC was able to mobilize resources beyond PROSPECTS, thanks to its new capacities and certified role as a training institution. The Cooperative Strategy’s action plan also prioritized key outputs, which made it easy for the JCC to engage potential funders around clearly defined areas. This included the establishment of a Cooperative Electronic Service Portal to streamline service delivery and improve data collection on cooperatives. 

At the micro level, AGEUs operated within agriculture cooperatives that had a history of facilitating agricultural work permits for Syrians. In the absence of formal and regulated employment, the sector saw the emergence of a network of informal labour brokers, called the Shaweesh. AGEUs helped formalize job placements in the sector and had dedicated staff to support Syrian refugees with the issuance of work permits, provide career counselling and refer them to employers/farmers on a daily and seasonal basis. AGEU staff conducted awareness-raising sessions with refugee and host community agriculture workers to explain the benefits of social security, work permits and other measures of formalization. Critically, they did so by visiting farms to provide in-person sessions, thereby also giving agriculture workers a point of contact. Between March 2021 and January 2022, they registered more than 3,600 agriculture workers for their services and supported close to 3,400 work placements, as well as providing labour-market information and labour-rights training. More than 2,500 work permits for Syrian workers were also facilitated through these units. In addition, the cooperatives and AGEUs were used as an entry point for raising awareness among workers of social security in the agriculture sector and for addressing the risks and instances of child labour. Cooperative members served on local child-labour committees, where they helped identify potential and actual instances of child labour in the agriculture sector and facilitate case management processes in coordination with UNICEF and local service providers.

Although the cooperative legislation introduced challenges in terms of fulfilling the principles of equality and inclusivity, the PROSPECTS team was able to work on strengthening the application of such principles downstream, while also supporting the review of laws and policies to support them. The ILO's specialization in cooperative policymaking, capacity-building and development enabled it to work at both levels and as a strong technical partner to the JCC. The parallel upstream and downstream work helped facilitate a shift in understanding of the cooperative movement at large. As one interviewee noted, stakeholders such as the Ministries of Labour and Agriculture and the JCC now share a common vision and understanding, and “speak the same language” on cooperative development. The intervention in Jordan’s cooperative sector also demonstrated the spillover benefits of horizontal integration. Cooperatives are pathways and entry points for various humanitarian and development interventions, as exemplified by the efforts to address child labour, occupational safety and health (OSH) and social security. They also add value by localizing these services and adapting them so that they are relevant for the community they serve.

Read about success stories of cooperatives formed in Jordan:

• Woman-led cooperative in Jordan expands business and drives local change through cooperative alliances
• Success story of changing lives through decent jobs