GIZ: Modelling Current and Potential Green Jobs in Jordan

Bespoke modelling for Jordan’s first-ever green jobs assessment

The German Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development commissioned GIZ (Deutsche Gesellschaft für Internationale Zusammenarbeit GmBH) and Cambridge Econometrics to produce the first-ever green jobs assessment for Jordan. 

As part of the Green Action in Enterprises (GAIN) project, the aim of the green jobs assessment was to estimate the current levels of green jobs in six selected sectors and the potential for future green jobs. The six sectors chosen were agriculture, waste and water, manufacturing, energy, tourism and transport.

Using the International Labour Organisations’ GAIN methodology for green job assessments, Cambridge Econometrics developed a bespoke macroeconomic model FRAMES-Jordan to analyse the potential socioeconomic and environmental impacts of scenarios which explored the uptake of six different green initiatives;  recycled plastic, recycled textile, resource efficiency in the food-processing sector, sustainable value extraction of sludge, water scarcity and green public transport.

Our economic modelling experts created a business-as-usual scenario which assumes annual growth of the Jordanian economy of 2.7% pa and 3% pa from 2025-2030, in line with the IMF’s economic outlook for Jordan in 2023. A series of alternative pathways called ‘What-if scenarios’ which were simulations of potential futures in response to green economic investments into the six different green initiatives were then assessed against the business-as-usual scenario.

The outcome of these assessments helped identify current and future green jobs across the six sectors. At a glance, green jobs in these sectors represent a total of 22%-33% of the country’s workforce, with transport and agriculture having the highest number of green jobs.Under the ‘What-if’ scenarios, the Jordanian economy could see an increase of 113,000 green jobs, compared to only an increase of 5,500 green jobs in a business-as-usual scenario where the green initiatives are not implemented by 2030.

Key Outcomes

• Key insights were delivered through a report co-authored between the project partners, with the insights launched through a high-level stakeholder event in Jordan which our experts attended and presented the findings.
• The result of the collaboration between Cambridge Econometrics, GIZ and stakeholder groups helped the identification of key sectors for enabling a greening of the economy with high levels of green job creation and employment.
• They also contributed to the ongoing implementation of the Government of Jordan’s Ministry of Labour National Employment Plan which has a goal of 10% of all jobs being green by 2030.