The purpose of this Fiduciary Risk Assessment (FRA) for Jordan is to update and expand on the FRA that was prepared in May 2016 at the country level for the education sector, including with a focus on the implementation of the Jordan Compact Education Programme, which is supported by the Department of International Development (DFID).
The FRA finds that the Public Financial Management (PFM) reform of the Government of Jordan (GoJ) continues to see steady, albeit slow, progress, and several positive developments have taken place since May 2016.
These include:
- New Organic Budget Law prepared and submitted to Parliament for approval;
- Macro-Fiscal Unit established at the Ministry of Finance (MoF);
- Further roll-out of the Government Financial Management Information System (GFMIS) so it now covers almost all GoJ entities and all modules (except for budget preparation);
- Public Investment Management (PIM) unit set up in the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation (MoPIC);
- Budget transparency improvement;
- Initiation of a mid-year budget review process
- Annual financial reporting now in accordance with international standards
- Expenditure arrears being monitored and reduced;
- Withdrawal of the Audit Bureau from pre-audit activities in ministries/departments; and,
- Electronic procurement system under implementation.
However, many weaknesses remain across all elements of the GoJ’s PFM system, and for some areas there have been few, e.g. procurement, or no developments, e.g. external audit.
On this basis, the overall fiduciary risk level is assessed as moderate (pre-mitigation), similar to the 2016 FRA, which means that the trajectory of change overall is considered stable.
