Founded in 1977, the Queen Alia Fund (QAF) has been promoting social development in Jordan for 15 years by providing social services, and educational and vocational training at the grassroots. The fund, which is the country's principal nongovernmental organization (NGO), operates a network of over 40 community development centers. Under its women's programs, the fund targets such areas as literacy, health, skill training, family planning (FP) and the environment. Princess Basma Bint Talal, chairperson, QAF, introduced the activities of the fund and expressed concern for population issues in Jordan during a meeting with JOICFP Deputy Executive Director Yasuo Kon on October 13 in Tokyo. "Jordan has a very high birthrate and rapid population expansion," she said. "This places very big burdens on services; so we are now very concerned with trying to relieve this situation." Noting that FP is a very sensitive issue in Jordan. Princess Basma said that a program for birth spacing had recently been adopted nationally. She added that both JOICFP and QAF shared many mutual priorities in their approaches including a shared emphasis on health education activities. "We'd very much like to see a fostering and promoting of relations between Japanese and Jordanian NGOs, particularly in this field, and we would be delighted if we could explore the possibility of further cooperation through some of the services we offer in Jordan in this regard," she said.