Jordan’s $700 Million World Bank Loan Bets on Private Jobs

The World Bank’s board approved a US$700 million loan for Jordan on June 30, 2026, the larger second slice of a reform series. The cash is budget support for rules already written. Unemployment among Jordanians at 21.0 percent in that same quarter is the labor market the loan walks into.

Jean-Christophe Carret, the Bank’s Division Director for the Middle East Department, said the program is meant to turn stability into private growth by making it cheaper to do business and by opening finance, including for women. The wager is narrower than the jobs headline. Growth of 2.8 percent in 2025 and a rare ratings upgrade have not produced enough work.

The $700 Million Pays for Rules Already Written

Development policy financing does not build a plant or hire a payroll. Once a government completes a list of prior actions, the Bank credits the treasury. Jordan’s Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation is the implementing agency. The borrower is the Hashemite Kingdom. The instrument is IBRD, project P509855.

The program document dated June 21, 2026, records the operation as the second in a series of three. Jordan’s Reform Secretariat budgets the whole series at a US$1.1 billion reform series, with DPF I at $400 million and DPF II at $700 million. The series opened on May 13, 2025. DPF I is slated to close in December 2027 and the series in December 2028. The third operation has not come to the board.

This program will support ongoing efforts that will help turn stability into stronger private sector growth by making it easier and less costly to do business.

Jean-Christophe Carret, World Bank Division Director for the Middle East Department

Two pillars sit under that line: a better business environment, and deeper access to finance. Micro, small, and medium firms are about 99 percent of companies in Jordan, so the finance pillar is written for shops and workshops that banks still treat as thin files.

A Rare Upgrade Meets a 21% Jobless Rate

Moody’s Ratings lifted Jordan to Ba3 from B1 on May 9, 2024, and moved the outlook to stable from positive. S&P Global Ratings followed on September 6, 2024, raising the long-term rating to BB- from B+, the first S&P upgrade in more than two decades. Fitch Ratings affirmed BB- with a stable outlook on May 7, 2025. The Bank’s own release treats that 2024 lift, held in 2025, as the platform for this loan.

The labor market did not move with the rating. The Department of Statistics put the jobless rate for the whole population, Jordanians and non-Jordanians, at 16.1 percent in the second quarter of 2026, down 0.4 point from 16.5 percent a year earlier. Among Jordanians the rate was 21.0 percent, down 0.3 point from 21.3 percent. Non-Jordanians were at 8.2 percent. Jordanian women were at 30.3 percent.

The IMF, in its fifth Extended Fund Facility review completed on June 17, 2026, printed 21.3 percent unemployment for 2025, matching the Department’s Jordanian reading for that spring. Thirteen days later the Bank’s board voted the $700 million. The Fund still projected 2.7 percent growth for 2026 after 2.8 percent in 2025.

THE RATING AND REVIEW CALENDAR

1. May 9, 2024: Moody’s upgrades Jordan to Ba3 from B1 and sets a stable outlook.
2. September 6, 2024: S&P raises the long-term rating to BB- from B+ with a stable outlook.
3. May 13, 2025: The Growth and Competitiveness series starts, with DPF I at $400 million.
4. June 17, 2026: The IMF completes the fifth EFF review and the second Resilience and Sustainability Facility review.
5. June 30, 2026: The World Bank board approves DPF II at $700 million.

Public debt is the other half of the bet. The IMF put government and guaranteed debt, net of Social Security Corporation holdings, at 83.6 percent of GDP at end-2025, and at 82.5 percent in 2026. On the Fund’s wider stock, including guarantees, the ratio was 109.0 percent in 2025. The same review released about $134 million under the EFF and about $54 million under the RSF. Amman is borrowing from both houses at once.

What the Second Loan Buys

Because the money follows prior actions, the useful list is the legal work already sent to parliament, the Central Bank, and the Cabinet. The program document and the Reform Secretariat describe the same checklist.

THE PRIOR ACTIONS IN THE FILE

• Licenses and competition: Streamline 20 priority sectoral licenses and keep investigating anticompetitive agreements and abuse of dominance, with the result indicator rising from 10 cases to 16 by December 2028.
• Digital deals: Modernize electronic and cross-border transactions, recognize foreign digital certificates, and push electronic notarization toward 20 percent of all notarization by 2028.
• Power: License independent transmission, self-generation, and storage under the Public Electricity Law of 2025.
• Flexible work: Extend proportional social insurance to part-time and flexible jobs so more people, especially women, can enter formal work.
• Capital markets: Send Securities Law amendments to parliament (letter dated May 18, 2026), strip double tax on mutual-fund profits (Cabinet decision September 8, 2025), and stand up debt-based crowdfunding (Central Bank regulation January 15, 2026).
• Cash-flow credit: Require lenders to report MSME transaction and cash-flow data to the licensed credit bureau so loans can rest on receipts, not only on land.
• Green label: Put the National Green Taxonomy into bank files through a Central Bank circular dated February 5, 2026.
• Digital treasury: Move outgoing government payments onto a paperless rail under a Prime Minister’s circular dated January 27, 2026, with all Chapter 1 budget entities told to finish within five years.

None of those items is a factory gate. Each one changes who may generate power, who may lend, and who must be insured. The $700 million is the invoice for that rewrite.

Private Firms Can Now Own Wires and Storage

The Bank’s regional account put the electricity clause in plain language on July 3, 2026: DPF II opens the market to private investors in renewables and storage for the first time, while it trims licensing and updates digital transactions.

New $700M #Jordan Growth & Competitiveness DPF II opens country's electricity market to private investors in renewables & storage for the first time, streamlines business licensing & modernizes the digital transactions framework.

Learn more: https://t.co/ZjNV20e5rY

— World Bank MENAAP (@WorldBankMENA) July 3, 2026

The Public Electricity Law of 2025, in force from mid-August 2025, is the statute behind that line. The Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources said the law lets people and firms own storage, generate for their own use, sell surplus to the grid, and, under technical rules, build private power networks that were previously barred. Storage linked to a renewable system may raise generating capacity by up to 100 percent of the customer’s use over the prior 12 bills, in draft connection rules the Cabinet floated in 2026.

The National Electric Power Company is the incumbent that lives with those rules. The IMF said NEPCO’s operating losses narrowed to 0.8 percent of GDP in 2025, or JD 351 million. Staff then put 2026 losses at JD 573 million, 1.2 percent of GDP, after a halt in Mediterranean gas in March. Smart meters covered 95 percent of end users, with full coverage a structural benchmark for June 2026. Private storage and private wires are supposed to share a grid that is still a fiscal risk.

The series target attached to this opening is at least $150 million in cumulative private capital in renewable generation and transmission, plus newly awarded mining concessions, by the end of 2028. That is a modest sum next to a $700 million budget loan. It is the number the Bank is willing to print as “private capital enabled.”

New Credit Tools Reach Firms Without Collateral

If electricity is the physical opening, the finance pillar is the paper one. MSMEs are about 99 percent of firms and still struggle to borrow against invoices rather than title deeds. DPF II pushes three pipes at once: crowdfunding, cash-flow lending, and a stripped-down bank account.

The Central Bank introduced debt-based crowdfunding through Regulation No. 2026/2 on January 15, 2026. Platforms need a license. Offer periods run to 60 days. Client money sits in segregated accounts and cannot be used as the platform’s own credit. The parallel cash-flow reform forces banks and finance companies to feed MSME transaction data into the licensed credit bureau, so a lender can underwrite a shop on turnover.

Light Business Accounts are the on-ramp for people with no full business file. The series target is 50,000 active accounts by 2028, of which at least 15,000 are held by women or women-owned firms. Digital outgoing government payments sit beside that target, because a supplier paid on a phone rail is a supplier with a visible cash history.

Green finance is the third pipe. The Council of Ministers approved the Jordan National Green Taxonomy on February 1, 2026. The Central Bank then told banks and licensed finance companies to use it for classifying green credit, reporting, and climate-risk files. The result indicator starts at zero in 2024, when there was no working taxonomy, and aims for at least $230 million in new taxonomy-aligned bank lending, cumulative, by 2028. An indicative later trigger would add a green loan regulation.

Women’s Work Is Written Into the Targets

Female labor force participation is the jobs number the Bank put on the page. The result indicator uses 15.2 percent in December 2024 as the baseline and 17.0 percent in December 2028 as the target, a gain of 1.8 points in four years. That is a small move on a low base, and it is the only labor-force target in the matrix.

The tools named for that move are proportional social insurance for flexible and part-time work, and a minimum 20 percent female presence on boards of selected shareholding companies. The Reform Secretariat says those steps, with Labour Law changes already done under DPF I, are meant to pull more women into formal private jobs. The Department of Statistics’ jobless rate for Jordanian women, 30.3 percent in the second quarter of 2026, is the stock those rules have to dent.

Public procurement is the other MSME lever. The share of contract value awarded to MSMEs is supposed to rise from 41.5 percent in 2024 to 45.0 percent by 2028, a 3.5 point gain, with JONEPS, the online procurement system, as the ledger. Insurance gets a new contract law, building on a policyholder protection scheme from the first operation. None of that hires a worker on Tuesday. It changes who can bid, who can sit on a board, and who is covered when a job is not full-time.

The Scoreboard Runs to December 2028

The loan is already approved. The test is a short list of public numbers through the end of the series. The table below uses the baselines and targets in the program document and the Reform Secretariat’s series page, not a separate forecast.

DPF SERIES RESULT TARGETS

Those figures are the bet, stated as accounting. If licenses fall, storage gets built, and 15,000 women hold a Light Business Account, the program can call itself on track even if Jordanian unemployment is still near 21 percent. If NEPCO’s losses stay near 1.2 percent of GDP and private capital in power misses $150 million, the treasury will still have spent the $700 million, because budget support does not claw back when a result indicator slips.

The Fund’s June review already treated 2.7 percent growth in 2026 as the near-term path, with 3.1 percent in 2027 and 3.0 percent in 2028. That is still a long way from the jobless rate the Department of Statistics printed for Jordanians in the quarter the board voted. The upgrade bought cheaper headlines. This loan buys a rewrite of who may generate, lend, and insure. Whether that rewrite hires people is the part that is still unpaid.

Frequently Asked Questions

What Is Jordan’s Economic Modernization Vision Trying to Build?

The government launched the Economic Modernization Vision in 2021 with three printed aims: mobilize $58.4 billion in investment, double economic growth, and create 1 million new jobs. DPF I and DPF II are Bank operations written against that vision, not a substitute for it, and the 1 million jobs figure is the government’s own target rather than a World Bank result indicator.

What Caps Apply to Lending-Based Crowdfunding in Jordan?

Central Bank Instructions No. 8/2026 cap a natural person’s cumulative participation at 15 percent of annual net income and a legal person’s at 30 percent of net assets, with each loan slice set between 5 percent and 25 percent of the total loan. Platforms must hold client funds in separate bank accounts, may not use those funds as their own credit or to earn interest, and must close an offer within 60 days.

When Did S&P Last Upgrade Jordan Before 2024?

The Finance Ministry said the September 6, 2024, move to BB- was S&P’s first sovereign upgrade for Jordan since 2003. Moody’s separate lift to Ba3 in May 2024 was the other 2024 action; Fitch was already at BB- and has been affirming that level rather than raising it.

How Much of Jordan’s Electricity Is Already Renewable?

The government has put renewable generation at around 27 percent of electricity needs, and the Energy Sector Strategy for 2025-2035 aims to raise that share to 40 percent by 2035. The 2025 electricity law and the DPF II storage and transmission licenses are the legal path for private capital to chase that 40 percent, not a guarantee that the share will arrive on time.