Feature

Exploring Jordan in Depth

Senior Lecturer and alumnus Charles Wheelan, PhD’98 and his students from this year’s International Policy Practicum spoke last week about their travels to Jordan and Israel in December and the class’s policy recommendations for the region.

“The first goal and the more obvious one [for the practicum] is to pick a region of the world and a specific policy issue and drill down on it in much greater depth,” said Wheelan at the Gleacher Center in his introduction of the program. “The second goal is the exercise in gathering a tremendous amount of information, trying to make some sense of it, and then processing it into a coherent document.”

The practicum consists of two parts, starting with a classroom portion where students learn about the region of study and focus on a specific policy problem. At the end of the course, rather than taking a final, the class travels to the area for ten to twelve days and meets with economists, government officials, journalists, and nonprofit leaders.

Following the trip, students use the information gathered both on the ground and in the classroom to write a policy memo suitable for a head of state or CEO—this year focused on answering the question: How can the United States leverage its relationship with Jordan to advance its key foreign policy goals in the Middle East?

According to Josh Kipnis, MPP’08, one of the most prominent current U.S. policy goals should be brokering a peace agreement for the Arab-Israel conflict. Kipnis explained that in Jordan “the Arab-Israeli conflict permeates every discussion you could possible have.” He noted that Jordan has a distinct role to play by strengthening its relations with Israel and encouraging peace talks among neighboring countries.

Kipnis also discussed establishing an international task force to address the lack of water in the region, one of the policy solutions proposed for cross-regional issues. This was one problem which Kipnis said, “We totally missed, until we were on the ground, how significant the water shortage is in the region and how it really that could lead to further instability in the future over water wars.”

Other major policy solutions provided includes encouraging Jordan to stabilize and secure its Iraqi border, engaging Jordan in talks with Syria, and creating a second international task force to support a new Palestinian state established under a peace agreement.

Madeleine Sumption, MPP’08 outlined suggestions for U.S. assistance in areas of economic development. This included working with the Jordanian Treasury to reform the tax system, extending a successful business model from the city of Aqaba to other parts of the country, and increasing the price of water so farmers use less and offering help with water sector investment and research.

A second major area in which the United States can provide real support is in education. Many Jordanians believe that the existing system stifles creativity. “This is an area where U.S. advice is actually quite appreciated” since U.S. educational institutions are admired in Jordan, Sumption explained. Among their educational recommendations, the students suggested that the United States should provide more opportunities for student exchange programs.

The issues highlighted during the talk demonstrate ways that the United States can partner with Jordan to offer real policy solutions in the region, both for Jordan and in other countries. “Disengaging from the Middle East is not an option for America,” said Sumption. “But at the same time engagement doesn’t have to be unilateral.”

Overall students generally agreed that while there is obvious room for improvement, the nation has become more stable and the Jordanian people have a “sense of optimism” for their country.