The remarks made by His Majesty the King's deputy, His Royal Highness Prince Hussein bin Abdullah II, Crown Prince, during his chairing of part of the Cabinet session, can be read from two intersecting angles. The first relates to Jordanians' daily lives and what they expect from their institutions, and the second concerns how to protect Jordan and its economic interests in a highly turbulent regional environment.
اضافة اعلان
The files His Highness addressed touch citizens directly: the availability of goods, prices, tourism and job opportunities, digital government services, health, administrative efficiency, and ultimately the state's ability to make decisions based on accurate data. At the same time, issues of transport, shipping, supply chains, strategic reserves, and foreign economic relations were present, files directly tied to Jordan's ability to withstand a volatile regional environment.
The Crown Prince's call to treat supply chains as a "national priority," and to maintain a strategic reserve of essential materials and goods, carries a significance that goes beyond day to day market management toward a broader concept of national security, amid a turbulent region whose fluctuations cannot be predicted. This requires, in addition to security and military capability, an economic and logistical capacity that shields people's lives from the effects of crises in order to preserve the regularity of the economy.
His Highness did not stop at managing the repercussions of the current crisis, but moved on to what the government should do to benefit from the initiatives led by His Majesty the King with countries around the world. Royal visits and meetings, and the agreements signed during them, should be translated into measurable, implementable programs and projects, and opportunities should move from the level of relations and agreements into the real economy capable of improving living standards. This is a point His Highness emphasized by making citizens' interests and improved living standards the higher benchmark for measuring the success of public policies.
This approach also appears in his remarks on tourism, a sector intertwined with transport, hotels, restaurants, crafts, markets, local communities, and job opportunities. His Highness's comments therefore focus on managing tourist sites, diversifying target markets, and improving the visitor experience, specific operational problems, rather than a conventional discussion of the sector's importance.
The same applies to technology, which should make citizens' lives easier, since the real value of digital transformation lies in the amount of time, effort, and cost it saves people, and in its ability to deliver services to citizens wherever they are.
Perhaps His Highness's remarks on data and artificial intelligence were among the points most closely tied to the future of government administration. A modern state cannot manage its institutions and files based on general estimates or scattered, delayed data. Improving government data management means moving gradually toward decisions grounded in information, through which problems can be detected early, the impact of policies measured, and resources directed to where they are actually needed.
Bringing these files together in the Crown Prince's remarks presents us with a clear roadmap of priorities for this stage. These are priorities that begin with a state that protects its borders and security, sustains its supply chains and reserves, and seeks political and economic opportunities abroad to translate into results at home. All of this proceeds in parallel with developing its infrastructure and economic sectors, to improve citizens' lives.
His Highness's follow up on these files must raise the ceiling of executive responsibility placed on the government and accelerate its accomplishment, especially since these files relate to Jordan's future and its geography, which it did not choose freely but which was imposed upon it, as well as to citizens' lives and wellbeing.
In a region ablaze, Jordan has always managed risks and prepared for them, while continuing to build for the future at the same time. This is the most important message in the Crown Prince's remarks. Facing regional circumstances does not mean freezing Jordan's plans, but rather increasing its capacity to maneuver, protecting its achievements, and also seizing the opportunities available to it for a better future for its people.
