Jordan

Jordan, with WFP support, has institutionalized a national school feeding programme that provides nutritious meals and daily snacks to more than 4700,000 Jordanian and refugee children in vulnerable communities and refugee camps. , particularly in vulnerable communities. The programme includes a home-grown healthy meals approach that supports local economic development by working with 12 community-based kitchens employing local vulnerable women and procuring meal ingredients from local farmers and bakeries. The provision of meals is complemented by a nutrition-sensitive education component targeting both students and caregivers to encourage healthy eating habits. 

Jordan also joined the School Meals Coalition in 2024 and has consistently participated in global school meals fora such as the Global Child Nutrition Forum (GCNF). Jordan has thus positioned itself is aligned with the Ministry of Education’s priorities and supports local agricultural cooperatives through food procurement, creating economic opportunities while improving student nutrition and learning outcomes. Jordan is a founding member of the Global School Meals Coalition, positioning itself as a regional knowledge provider on sustainable school feeding models. 

Further, as Jordan starts developing its second National School Feeding Strategy and enters a gradual handover phase of the National School Feeding Programme from WFP to the Ministry of Education, opportunities for international knowledge exchange are welcome.

Jordan hosts over 1.3 million Syrians, of whom around 670,000 are registered refugees. The country has integrated refugee assistance into national systems, notably through Social Services, Health and Education. WFP supports refugees and vulnerable Jordanians with monthly electronic vouchers redeemable in local shops, strengthening local markets. Jordan recently launched its updated National Social Protection Strategy (2025-2033) with four pillars covering social assistance, social insurance, social services and shock-responsive social protection. Since 2019, Jordan has extensive experience designing, scaling-up, and constantly strengthening its flagship social assistance programme, the Unified Cash Transfer (UCT) programme. A key achievement in this area has been the Jordanian Government’s collaboration with partners to strengthen national capacities and systems in a sustainable manner. 

Further, Jordan has now started designing a national shock-responsive social protection system, in line with its most recent strategy, drawing on international best practices. Thus, Jordan has much to offer as a regional leader in social assistance provision and would also benefit from global knowledge exchange opportunities on shock-responsive social protection. It also extends support to the National Social Protection System through  technical assistance and capacity strengthening for the Cash Transfer Program led by the National Aid Fund (NAF); and Shock Responsiveness led by the Ministry of Social Development (MoSD) and the National Center for Security and Crisis Management (NCSCM).  

Jordan’s experience in linking humanitarian aid with social protection policies, including the National Social Protection Strategy 2019–2025, offers valuable experience for other countries.

Jordan’s high import dependence and rising climate risks make evidence-driven action essential. Under the National Food Security Strategy (2021–2030), WFP, the Food Security Council (FSC) and national partners developed two knowledge products—Fill the Nutrient Gap (FNG) and the Food Consumption & Behavior Analysis (FCBA). 

FNG combines Cost-of-the-Diet modelling with secondary data to quantify nutrient gaps and affordability by governorate and population group, then tests policy options such as wheat-flour fortification, nutrition-sensitive school feeding and shock-responsive cash-plus designs. 

FCBA complements this by measuring diet quality and the drivers of food choice and acquisition, generating behaviorally informed insights for social and behavior change communication and for shaping healthier food environments. Findings are validated and socialized through the FSC and translated into sector actions—informing large-scale fortification (e.g., wheat flour with iron and folic acid), healthy-snack standards in schools and the calibration of transfer values and complementary services in social protection—to improve access to nutritious diets across the life course. 

Through SSTC, Jordan packages and shares these methods and results—via study visits and virtual/in-person trainings—with peers strengthening resilient, nutrition-sensitive systems. As a further signal of commitment to school meals, Jordan joined the School Meals Coalition in 2024, reinforcing the pathway from evidence to policy to implementation.