Facilitating Smallholder Farmers’ Market Access
In the OIC Member Countries
113
Access to finance
As discussed, Jordan scores poorly in perceptions about how easily businesses can obtain
credit. This perception is reflected i which reports data from the World Bank’s
Global Financial Inclusion
database.189 The figure shows
that few of the people surveyed
had received a loan from a
formal financial institution. On a
percentage basis, urban
households were more likely to
have received a formal loan than
rural households, but for both
groups the rate was below 5
percent. Family and friends
provided most loans (slightly
more than 20 percent for rural
households surveyed and about
26 percent for urban
households). The difficulty of
obtaining credit in Jordan is
exacerbated by the low rate of
saving. Roughly 80 percent of rural households and nearly 88 percent of urban households
in Jordan said that they were unable to save money during the year.
Food safety
Domestic food safety standards have a relatively short history in Jordan and the Near East
in general,190 partly because most of these countries are net food importers and rely to
some extent on standards imposed by authorities in exporting countries. Recent years
have seen a greater emphasis on the safety of domestic and imported food sources. In
Jordan, the government established the Jordan Food and Drug Administration (JFDA) in
2003. The basic legislation, Food Law No. 79/2001, charges the JFDA with ensuring that
Jordan’s food laws are on par with international standards and consistent with WTO
rules.191
Lessons for other OIC countries
Since Jordan initiated policy reforms in the 1990s, average incomes have grown across the
Jordanian economy; incomes in agriculture have grown even faster. The reforms reduced
agriculture’s economic footprint even as the share of the population engaged in
agriculture shrank. Although the eventual restructuring was not without costs—for
189 Global Findex (World Bank 2014c).
190 Hegarty (2010).
191 Hegarty (2010).
FIGURE 71: FINANCIAL SERVICES IN RURAL AND URBAN
JORDAN
Source: Global Findex (World Bank 2014c).