US embassy cable - 05AMMAN1629

UNCLAS AMMAN 001629 
 
SIPDIS 
 
STATE FOR NEA/ELA, NEA/PPD, IIP 
 
E.O. 12958: N/A 
 
TAGS: KPAO, OIIP, KIRC, EAID, SCUL, JO 
SUBJECT:  PAS Amman Conducts Web Dialogue 
 
 
1.  PAS Amman hosted February 17 a web dialogue on the 
Embassy's public website between USAID Jordan Mission 
Director Anne Aarnes and the Jordanian public.  This 
is the first of what are planned as monthly web 
dialogue sessions with senior country team members. 
The web dialogue enabled Jordanians, mainly youth, to 
ask Embassy officers directly about aspects of our 
bilateral relations - foreign policy, aid, MEPI and 
other subjects - in which they have direct interest. 
Besides providing the U.S. view, this program 
highlights our commitment to dialogue with the 
ordinary Jordanian.  A link to the dialogue can be 
found on the top right hand corner of the Embassy's 
homepage at:  http://jordan.usembassy.gov 
 
2.  The monthly web dialogue is modeled on the daily 
"ask the whitehouse" feature on whitehouse.gov 
website.  Our idea is to give individual senior 
country team members greater access to the public and 
to build viewership of Embassy Amman's public website. 
We plan similar sessions with the Consul General, PAO, 
ECON Counselor and FCS officer in coming months. 
 
3.  We advertised this initial discussion for about 
two weeks prior to the event, receiving numerous 
questions through our webserver and in emails sent 
directly to the Embassy webmaster.  The dialogue was 
conducted in English, although we invited questions in 
Arabic, which were translated with an Arabic language 
response going directly to the sender (note: Embassy 
Amman's website is almost 100 percent bilingual Arabic- 
English.  End Note.)  The dialogue enabled us to reach 
a unique audience about US assistance programs in 
Jordan and to address in some detail a number of 
specific USAID programs, including those targeting the 
water, health, education, IT and youth sectors, in 
addition to democracy-promotion and USAID's economic 
opportunities portfolio. 
 
3.  PAS Amman had earlier experimented with this idea 
in a discussion session conducted with two Amman-area 
high schools in the days prior to the November 
Presidential Election.  That event elicited an 
extremely positive response.  We intend to augment our 
monthly web dialogues described above with individual, 
real-time scheduled discussions with high school and 
university groups. 
 
4.  PAS Amman's public website is hosted locally and 
runs on a locally-developed Content Management System. 
Among the features of this CMS are discussion forums 
and real-time dialogues of which we plan to make 
increasing use as the Embassy expands its internet 
outreach to the Jordanian public. 
HALE