The Joint Programme Accelerating Jordan’s Progress towards SDGs by Establishing Building Blocks of an Integrated Financing Framework provided significant support to the Government of Jordan in aligning planning, budgeting, and financing and in ensuring that public and private investments increasingly address the national Sustainable Development Goals (SDG) priorities.
The Participating UN Organizations - the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP, as lead agency), United Nations Children’s Fund (UNICEF) and UN Women – have implemented activities to contribute to advancing the SDGs by introducing changes at the Government level with the building blocks of an INFF process in Jordan.
The programme responded to the pressing needs of the people of Jordan by focusing on gender (SDG 5) and climate (SDG 13) in establishing the initial building blocks of an INFF. The programme supported the introduction of budgeting practices in those two cross-cutting issues, which affect many of the other SDGs.
The Government of Jordan enhanced its ability to efficiently use resources to accelerate the achievements of the SDGs, thanks to the reinforcement of its institutional capacities and the increasing availability of financial data. Government staff, within the General Budget Department and Ministry of Finance as well as other institutions, are now better equipped to factor in gender and climate objectives in the budgeting process. One of the key achievements of UNICEF’s support to the development of a Climate Public Expenditure Review (CPER), is that it is the first of its kind in the region and supports the institutionalization and integration of climate change into national budgeting and planning systems, thus improving responses to climate vulnerabilities.
The programme also improved the alignment of public and private investments with the SDGs, thus helping to enhance funding availability for SDG priorities. Progress in impact measurement and management with a gender lens applied is intended to provide a more efficient and transparent contribution of investments to the progress towards SDGs. Major institutions like the Amman Stock Exchange the Social Security Investment Fund and a number of private companies have been trained to better integrate SDGs in their investment decisions. An impact investment ecosystem is being better structured with the creation of a network that brings together the champions of impact investment. The ambition is to foster collective action and to enhance pipelines for investments with impacts on the SDGs in Jordan.
Significant progress was made toward gender mainstreaming across public and private financing. Gender was fully integrated in training on impact measurement and management. By the end of the programme, the Women’s Empowerment Principles Signatories Network in Jordan was expanded in the private sector to reach 141 companies, the highest in the region with the support of this programme. To foster effective collaboration and drive innovative approaches to address gender equality, a Financing for Gender Equality platform has been established and is hosted by a Jordanian impact investment fund, Amam Ventures.
The programme built ownership from national public and private stakeholders. There is a higher level of awareness of the importance of the building blocks of an INFF to advance the SDGs, as well as the national priorities stated in Jordan’s Economic Modernization Vision. The initial findings of the Development Finance Assessment have been presented to a range of relevant stakeholders and will lead to the development of an INFF roadmap to move forward in establishing and operationalizing the INFF in Jordan.
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The Joint SDG Fund's joint programmes are under the prestige leadership of the Resident Coordinator Office and implementing United Nations Agencies. With sincere appreciation for the contributions from the European Union and Governments of Denmark, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Luxembourg, Monaco, The Netherlands, Norway, Portugal, Republic of Korea, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and our private sector funding partners, for a transformative movement towards achieving the SDGs by 2030.
