Yarmouk University, represented by Dr. Ali Shehadeh, Director of the Accreditation and Quality Assurance Center, Dr. Batoul Al-Muhaisen, Director of the Princess Basma Center for Jordanian Women's Studies, and Dr. Ayman Jaradat from the Civil Engineering Department at the Hijjawi College of Engineering Technology, participated in a three-day training of trainers workshop organized by the Irbid Governorate in cooperation with the Ministry of Interior and the National Center for Security and Crisis Management. The workshop is part of the project to enhance coherence between climate change adaptation and disaster risk reduction in Jordan, in support of comprehensive health system responses for migrants and host communities.
The first day of the workshop addressed framing concepts and policies, explaining the 2015–2030 National Framework, and introducing the Urban Resilience Scorecard as a standard tool for assessing risks and building local preparedness. The second day addressed practical application through group work sessions that applied the scorecard to vital sectors in Irbid, while establishing measurable and trackable baselines and indicators.
The program concluded on the third day with the standardization of the training methodology and mechanisms for transferring knowledge to municipalities, health directorates, and academic institutions to ensure sustainability and expansion.
The workshop witnessed active participation from the participating university team. Jaradat contributed engineering ideas and information related to diagnosing urban infrastructure risks and paths to enhancing its resilience. Al-Muhaisen presented the integration of a gender perspective and the protection of the most vulnerable groups into resilience plans and community engagement mechanisms. Shahadeh addressed the alignment of outcomes with quality systems, institutional governance, and performance indicators to ensure applicability, monitoring, and continuous improvement.
This participation reinforces Yarmouk University's mission and strategy by transforming academic knowledge into practical solutions that enhance the preparedness of local community institutions and provide opportunities for service learning and interdisciplinary research projects for engineering, health sciences, and humanities students. It also contributes to forming the core of a national team of trainers, led by university partners, to transfer the resilience measurement methodology to institutions in Irbid Governorate and its surrounding areas, and to consolidate evidence-based planning in local administration.
At the national level, the workshop outcomes support the comprehensive health response system, reduce the risk of losses resulting from disasters and extreme weather events, enhance integration between municipalities, health directorates, and supporting agencies, and achieve the Sustainable Development Goals, particularly the goal related to good health and well-being, the goal related to sustainable cities, and the goal related to climate action.
It is worth noting that this workshop was organized in partnership with the United Nations Office for Disaster Risk Reduction, the International Organization for Migration, and the World Health Organization, and implemented by the Climate Action Association - Jordan.
