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DURING THE seasonal pressures of Christmas last year, an order was placed in Amman for an unusually big Bani Hamida rug. The design was determined in the office in Amman, including colors labeled in English abbreviations. After the request was brought to Gebal Bani Hamida, the orders for the appropriate colored wool were sent to the dyers. The women there realized that they did not have the exact shade of yellow requested, but amongst the over three-hundred other colors they did have, they found an approximate replacement. However, they could not make the decision to dye the wool on their own. Instead, they contacted the office in Amman, where their question was noted. Some time later, the designer was informed, and sent back the answer that only the exact tint of yellow would do. So the dyers waited for the stock to be refilled, over the timeliness of which they had little control. The office in Amman complained of the slowness of the work, pressing the women as to why they were behind in filling the order.
Empowerment and NGOs
Empowerment and employment are not interchangeable words. Yet in the hazy measures of evaluation used by non-governmental organizations, the number of people involved is stated as a rate of success. The eloquence of grant writers is certainly of a high standard, but when removed from the language of empowerment, some of these projects are almost indifferentiable from traditional exploitative enterprises using the most easily marginalized of labor: women.
The Bani Hamida Women’s Weaving project is one of the most praised, emulated, and the first of income-generating projects in Jordan. Begun in 1985 by the Queen Noor al-Hussein Foundation in collaboration with Save the Children UK, the project has involved more than 3,600 village women as weavers, dyers, spinners, and supervisors. The Queen Noor al-Hussein Foundation ceded responsibility for the project to the Jordan River Foundation, headed by Queen Rania Al Abdulla, in 1996.
Numerous internal and external studies have been done, foreign consultants, designers, marketers have been hired, trade shows attended, brochures put together, and rugs woven. In spite of this particular ‘income-generating’ project’s success, no one has ever claimed that it makes money. Though the word ‘self-sustainable’ is bantered around, no one considers the project to be so. People responsible for all levels of the project reiterate their feelings that it could not be profitable, not at the current quality of production and social interests. In fact people from all parts of enterprises related to handicrafts state their conviction that handicrafts in Jordan do not make money. “Labor is too expensive,” they say. “There is no history of handicrafts in the country.” “People don’t respect the work enough, thus there is no domestic market.” Handicrafts, however, do make money in Jordan. Scores of woven rugs of lower qualities are sold around the country. Silsal Ceramics, a private enterprise, sells everything it makes. Mosaics have several successful producers. Handicrafts imported from abroad clearly are finding buyers; tourist sites are filled with cheap imports from southeast Asia.
The crux of this story is that the income-generating projects do not in fact produce enough income to be profitable, or in the language of NGOs, self-sustainable. And the fault lies not with inherent characteristics of Jordanian handicrafts, or Jordanian markets, or Jordanian work ethics, but in the practices of the income-generating projects and their mother institutions themselves. The sheer scale of these projects, the size of the grants donated by various sources, and the visibility of the royal non-governmental organizations increases their influences on the handicraft industry and its image in Jordanian society as a whole.
The excuses given for a fatalistic outlook on Jordanian handicrafts remain excuses. Jordanian labor is more expensive than Indian labor, but it is significantly cheaper than many countries, and with the unemployment level hovering around 25 percent there is no shortage of labor. There is indeed a tradition of handicrafts in Jordan—bedouins have been weaving houses, rugs, and saddles for centuries; Nabeteans were filling Petra up with pottery long before the Romans entered the scene. There is a domestic market for certain qualities of products, as is evident when the private sector is examined. NGOs, for a variety of non-market reasons, have chosen to focus on a very high end market, with correspondingly expensive products, and the domestic market for such merchandise is limited. The real reason for the failure of these projects to become self-sustainable is the consistent use of non-market decisions throughout the method of production, the large overhead entailed by the mother institutions, and the resulting bloated bureaucratic structure of the projects. In many ways the organizations resemble the most non-competitive of national institutions—the government itself.
Royal NGOs
Jordan’s major non-governmental organizational structure has the dubious fortune of being dominated by large royal non-governmental organizations. Begun by royal decree, the institutions see no contradiction in being royal non-governmental organizations in a country where the government is led by royals. While there are hundreds of registered NGOs in Jordan, it is easy to specify those with the most resources, visibility, and effect: Jordan River Foundation, headed by Queen Rania, the Noor al Hussein Foundation (est. 1985), headed by the namesake, and JOHUD, once the Queen Alia Foundation, now the Jordanian Hashemite Fund for Human Development (est. 1977), headed by Princess Basma.
Royal NGOs are established by royal decree, and are consistently organized from the top down. They are within the category of NGOs able to receive donations from foreign organizations. Led by female members of the royal family, their fortunes and status ebb and flow with the positions of the women in the family. Legally, they are not linked to the government, with separate finances and institutions. Yet in many ways, through modeling and people, they resemble ministries. There is a high turnover for executive directors, who are often political appointees. Decisionmaking power is held at the very top of the organization; power is centralized in Amman; within the hierarchical structure, bureaucracy and inflexibility reign. What is noticeably different in these organizations is that the vast majority of the people working in the office are women. These women are not to be confused with the ‘beneficiaries’ of the projects, for they are out in the countryside. But the educated higher class women of Amman find work within these royal non-governmental organizations. The institutional aspects of these mother organizations send rippled effects to the income-generating NGO projects across the country. The real decisions on what to make, who to target, how to make it, and what to make it with all come from Amman. This structure can sidestep the stated purpose of the income-generating project—the social development of the beneficiaries.
An example of this is the decision to make high quality products. Bani Hamida rugs are made using wool from New Zealand, imported dyes, and patterns designed by foreigners. It is, in terms of quality and cost of raw materials, a very high end product. Anomalies within the patterns are considered defects, and consistency of the product is encouraged. But none of this was inevitable; all were conscious decisions taken by the NGO. Traditional rugs often have imperfections, and are made of local wool. There are cheaper dyes, or pre-dyed wool. There may be a better tourist and local market for cheaper products. So why this insistence on a high end market? One explanation is the form of competition that has arisen between the royal NGOs; there is prestige in making the very highest quality product, even if a market for the product does not exist domestically. Another possible reason is that the rugs remain distinctive; copyright laws in Jordan do not effectively discourage imitation work. One change of one color is enough for the design to be considered legally original. Copy-caters are able to produce the same products at much cheaper costs, as they do not have the same overheads or social agendas as do the NGOs. One change of one color causes the entire product to be entirely different. So the rugs can remain distinctive, but unsold.
Prestige and status seem important to the royal NGOs. In addition to deciding to make high end products that the domestic economy cannot support, the organizations choose to take part in flashy, expensive endeavors. For instance, the Bani Hamida Weavers have participated in international trade shows. These easily cost upwards of fifteen thousand dollars and have occasionally resulted in Indian companies quickly producing exact copies of Bani Hamida work. There does not seem to be an economic reason to do this, but in terms of prestige it may have significant returns.
Another characteristic of the income-generating projects is that the actual workers are considered ‘beneficiaries,’ rather than employees. In many ways this lands them firmly in the informal sector, uncovered by laws, unregulated, and powerless. They are further expected to be grateful to the NGO—they are after all its ‘beneficiaries,’ the very reason the project exists. It is not that the NGOs consciously misuse the village women; but the women are typically poor, uneducated, and dependent on the NGO. The low status of the actual work is reflected in that neither men nor educated village women have any real interest in doing the work; the younger generation of women in Gebal Bani Hamida only want to be supervisors, not weavers. Wages are paid months late and occasionally cut in ways that appear arbitrary. There is no health insurance, no regulated vacation days, no real rights. These women are working, yet they are being marginalized in their work by organizations that have ‘empowerment’ as a mission statement.
There does seem to be a confusion between empowerment and employment in the practices of the income-generating projects. A job does not guarantee power, as any cursory reading of sweatshop practices can confirm. The power in the Royal NGO lies, if not with the royal herself, than the board of directors, or the executive director, certainly someone in Amman. If women are not able to make simple decisions about things like the shade of yellow, then they are not empowered, they are working, in circumstances that are not ideal. It seems far preferable to work at a socially conscious business that treats its employees as workers with rights, than to work at an income-generating NGO that considers its employees beneficiaries, and treats them as workers without rights.
The Influence of Income-Generating Projects on Handicrafts in Jordan
The economy is such in Jordan as a whole and in villages especially, that any money is desperately needed. There is no question that royal NGOs and their income-generating projects have supplied money where before there was none. But beyond considering complaining ‘beneficiaries’ ingrates, there is an overall problem with using large sluggish non-market based institutions to launch industries. Hence the overriding feeling from people in the industry that the only way handicrafts exist in Jordan is through subsidies. In fact the crafts that do make money are those begun by the private sector rather than by the NGOs. Mosaics, ironwork, pottery, these were all begun first by the private sector. Occasionally a royal NGO will try and take over a successful craft enterprise, the very opposite of the idea that NGOs should start projects, and then spin them off to be run privately.
This is not to say that the results have been only negative. The royal NGOs are good at promoting Jordanian handicrafts, especially within the country. When Queen Noor is photographed with a Bani Hamida weaving, she does impart prestige to the products. The royal NGOs have also funded many training programs such as the Noor al-Hussein Foundation’s Salt Training Center. Also, on-site training is common. In theory, people (and it is usually women) could take those skills and begin businesses of their own—but this is rare. The training at the various income-generating projects is haphazard, and so much of the control is retained in Amman that true understanding of the entire project is hard to come by. The capital, self-confidence, and resources required for entrepreneurial endeavors are often not within reach of the poor. My point here is that wasting people’s time learning skills that are not marketable is a disservice to the poor, above and beyond a misallocation of resources.
Essentially, incentives existing within the non-governmental organizations in Jordan are not the same as market incentives. Instead of looking to making profits, they look to win grants. For this in the end is how they continue to exist; grants are the backbone of the non-governmental organizations. And as such, they are absolutely successful. Their eloquence and familiarity with the language of development work is clear. However, making saleable products that bring in profit becomes secondary. Profit is not the financial backbone, nor is it even necessary for the survival of NGOs. And as such, the organizations are not good at it. They do not need to be. This is unfortunate for the fulfillment of their mission statements, for the ‘beneficiaries,’ for donors hoping to support development, and for the dynamics of the handicraft industry in Jordan.
Evaluating the success of social development is difficult. It is not to be measured in the clear-cut bottom line of businesses. Having a profitable business does not ensure the development of the community that does the work. Having an unprofitable organization, however, also does not ensure the development of the community that does the work. And with the royal NGOs, that mirror in many ways a bloated government organization, the ‘beneficiaries’ and their needs are easily lost amidst the greater structure. These income-generating projects try to straddle the line between charity and business, and they end up on the wrong side of both.
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