In Jordan, water — an essential factor of economic growth and social development — is scarce. The imbalance between the supply and demand of this precious resource is evidently at the cost of over-abstracted groundwater. The agriculture and food industry is the main water consumer — irrigation alone contributes to about 60 percent of the total water usage in the country. Huge investments have been made to mitigate this imbalance as much as possible and others are in the pipeline or are being planned. Significant improvements are also required from the water demand side in order to move towards a sustainable equilibrium. The main objective of this report is to both indicate ways for Jordan to move away from all unsustainable agricultural and food activities (high water consumers and water inefficient), and suggest paths toward more water efficient and productive solutions.

The book examines the correlation between Intellectual Property Law – notably copyright – on the one hand and social and economic development on the other. The main focus of the initial overview is on historical, legal, economic and cultural aspects. Building on that, the work subsequently investigates how intellectual property systems have to be designed in order to foster social and economic growth in developing countries and puts forward theoretical and practical solutions that should be considered and implemented by policy makers, legal experts and the Word Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO).