also already established an enabling and supporting environment for education, including a National Broadband Learning and Research Network.

In early 2002, the WEF organized a kick-off meeting for the initiative in London, inviting organizations from around the world to participate. JEI was officially conceived at the extraordinary IT and Telecom Governance meeting of the World Economic Forum in January 2003 and launched in June 2003 at the WEF Jordan meeting at the Dead Sea. JEI was also a response to the call of the _Arab Human Development Report 2002_ (UNDP and Arab Fund 2002) for public and private collaboration to promote effective change in the region.

Initial investment in the first phase of JEI operations was $25 million (Table 1). There are 46 partners in the initiative, including: the British Council, Cisco Systems, Computer Associates, Corning Cable Systems, Dell, Fastlink, France Telecom, Hewlett Packard, Intel, the Krach Family Foundation, Microsoft, the Jordanian Ministry of Education (MoE), the Jordanian Ministry of ICT (MOICT), RazorView, the U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID), the U.S. Middle East Partnership Initiative, and the WEF. During this first phase, the initiative mainly provided infrastructure—that is, it equipped schools with computers, laptops, and other technologies—and trained teachers in various ICT literacy programs. The second phase of the initiative, currently underway, focuses on pedagogy and developing student skills.

**<u><mark>Table 1: Contributors to JEI Phase I Operations</mark></u>** **_<u><mark>($ million)</mark></u>_**

|_Contributor _|_Investment_|
|---|---|
|Jordanian and internationalpartners|19|
|Ministrysources|6|
|**Total **|**25**|
|Source: USAID 2008||

The program is managed by the JEI Program Management Office (PMO), which reports to a local board and operates under the umbrella of an executive committee. Members of the executive committee include the Minister of Education, the Minister of ICT, and the Minister of Planning and International Cooperation, as well as representatives of Cisco, Microsoft, USAID, Fastlink, the WEF, and Intel. The Executive Committee is chaired by the Minister of ICT, under the patronage of Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah.

JEI moved quickly from an externally supported public-private partnership project to become nationally owned. The WEF umbrella was limited to three years and most partners' support for content development and provision of ICT inputs were completed by early 2007. This period represented the first phase of JEI. In order to both continue and expand its activities in support of Jordanian education, a decision was made in early 2008 by all local and global stakeholders in the initiative to transform JEI from a PMO to a not-for-profit company. The new organization would have an expanded national role: to incorporate innovative research, monitoring, and evaluation into its activities, in addition to project management.

In 2008, JEI was registered with the Ministry of Industry and Trade as a not-for-profit limited liability company working to improve education. As was true of its previous phase, JEI is supported by Her Majesty Queen Rania Al Abdullah. As an independent organization, JEI has the autonomy and ability to pursue objectives that are wider in scope. No longer simply a PMO that implements a pre-set strategy, JEI can now develop its own strategy based on local needs. It can also evolve into an organization dedicated to research and innovation in education, performing monitoring and evaluation at several levels, in addition to being a strong implementer 3