Washington, DC (July 19, 2007) - Higher Education for Development (HED), in cooperation with the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID/Jordan), announces a new award for a university partnership in Jordan. The William Davidson Institute (WDI) at the University of Michigan receives a $699,168 award to implement the Jordanian Education for Water and Environmental Leadership Project (JEWEL).
WDI’s is heading a consortium that includes the Jordan University of Science and Technology (JUST), the University of Jordan (UJ), the Erb Institute for Global Sustainable Enterprise at the University of Michigan, the University of Michigan School of Natural Resources and Environment, the Center for Sustainable Global Enterprise at Cornell University’s S.C. Johnson Graduate School of Management, and the Jordan River Foundation. The total proposed cost share was $336,426 (48% of the grant).
“The JEWEL partnership focuses on developing leaders at all levels in the public, private and community sectors who understand how to use and how to develop new decision-support tools for natural resources management,” said Dr. Wajih Owais, President of JUST.
The major activities of JEWEL will include: developing a Master of Science degree program in Natural Resources Management at UJ and JUST; developing training modules for private and public sector leaders in natural resources management; and, establishing a Sustainable Business and Innovation Research Center and Laboratory.
According to Khalid Al-Naif, Director of Development Consulting Services at WDI, the JEWEL partnership stands out because it “goes beyond training and incorporates the principles of integrated natural resource management.”
Through the Collaborative Partnerships program, USAID's Bureau for Economic Growth, Agriculture, and Trade/Office of Education (EGAT/ED) is assisting USAID Missions to mobilize the expertise and resources of U.S. and host country higher education institutions to strengthen host country organizational effectiveness. The overall goal is to improve the ability of higher education institutions to better contribute to host country development. The U.S. Agency for International Development has provided economic and humanitarian assistance worldwide for more than 40 years. For more information, please visit
http://www.usaid.gov.
The HED program engages the resources of higher education institutions in the United States and abroad for global social and economic development through human and institutional capacity building. HED assists the nation’s six major higher education associations and their members in partnering with USAID, as well as other development agencies and donor organizations. For more information about HED, please visit
http://www.HEDprogram.org.
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