AMMAN, Jordan – January 15, 2015 – The Ministry of Environment of the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan and the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI) signed a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on the development of a green growth action plan for Jordan on January 15, 2015. H.E. Taher Shakhshir, Minister of Environment, and Yvo de Boer, Director-General of GGGI, signed the agreement at a ceremony during the Stakeholder Engagement Workshop for Green Growth in Amman.
The Ministry of Environment and GGGI are partnering to develop a comprehensive set of national green growth policies and actions for Jordan. Collaboration will include the improvement of existing data, action-plan recommendations, stakeholder engagement, and sharing of expertise and experience to support green growth in Jordan. Under the agreement, a GGGI office will be set-up within the Ministry to coordinate program activities.
“Today’s agreement will further strengthen our green economy objectives by helping us institutionalize Jordan’s national green growth policy and strategy, and prepare a national green growth action plan,” said H.E. Shakhshir, Minister of the Environment.
“I am very pleased by the growing level of interest the private and public sectors are expressing for green sustainable investments in the Kingdom,” added Minister Shakhshir, while noting the importance of stakeholder engagement and the Ministry’s determined effort to promote green growth.
“This program represents an excellent opportunity to contribute to both Jordan’s green growth vision and its practical implementation,” said Yvo de Boer, Director-General of GGGI. “To achieve this our work will focus on the development of a policy framework and an implementation roadmap.”
Minister Shakhshir welcomed more than 100 officials from Ministries and the public sector, representatives from local governments, private sector associations, NGOs, academic institutions and other organizations to the MoU signing ceremony and workshop. GGGI Director-General, Yvo de Boer and Juergen Keinhorst, Head of the Cooperation with Countries of Central and Eastern Europe, Newly Independent States and MENA Region” Division, within the German Ministry of Environment, stressed the importance of sustainable development for Jordan in their keynote addresses.
The workshop was supported by the German Ministry of Environment and the Global Green Growth Institute (GGGI).
GGGI in the Middle East and North Africa
Based in Seoul, GGGI is an intergovernmental organization founded to support and promote green growth. The organization partners with countries around the globe to help them build economies that grow strongly and are more efficient and sustainable in the use of natural resources, less carbon intensive, and more resilient to climate change. Through its Abu Dhabi Office, GGGI is active in the United Arab Emirates (U.A.E), Jordan and Morocco. In the U.A.E. and Jordan, GGGI supports the governments in the design of a comprehensive National Green Growth Strategy that includes recommendations for six economic sectors. Moreover, the GGGI is working with the government of Morocco. To learn more, see www.gggi.org and visit us on Facebook and Twitter.