IFC Capital Backs Jordan’s Climate Resilience Agenda
IFC, a member of the World Bank Group, partnered on a USD 50 million sustainability bond with Jordan Ahli Bank in 2024, Jordan’s first locally issued sustainability bond, rather than a second green bond by Jordan Kuwait Bank. The IFC investment is typically accompanied by blended finance tools designed to improve the risk-return profile of climate-focused lending and crowd in additional private investors.
Proceeds from the new bond will be used for a range of climate-focused projects in Jordan, with a clear emphasis on strengthening climate adaptation and resilience. In practice, this points to investments aligned with IFC’s updated green bond framework, which now highlights outcomes such as resilient livelihoods and inclusive climate-smart business models.
The coupon and detailed terms of the Jordan Ahli Bank transaction have not been disclosed. However, IFC’s broader green bond activity offers some guidance on pricing conditions in the current market. On July 7, 2026, IFC priced a US$2 billion, five-year US dollar green benchmark bond, paying a 4.25% semi-annual coupon and a spread of 1.7 basis points versus the reference US Treasury, its first US dollar green benchmark since 2017 and the first under IFC’s updated Green Bond Framework. That deal showed strong institutional investor appetite for high-grade climate-labelled paper and helps anchor pricing expectations for regional issuers.
For Jordan Ahli Bank, the partnership with IFC provides long-term funding for climate projects that are not yet widely financed through Jordan’s domestic capital markets. For IFC, the transaction extends its role as an anchor investor in MENA’s emerging green and sustainability bond segment, using targeted concessional support to open space for commercial capital to follow.
From Green Bond Debut to a Broader Sustainable Finance Signal
Jordan’s labelled debt market has expanded since 2023 through programmes such as Housing Bank’s green financing framework in partnership with EBRD, the EU and the Green Climate Fund, and a 2024 sustainability bond issued by Jordan Ahli Bank in partnership with IFC. Proceeds from that earlier bond were directed towards green projects including water and wastewater management initiatives, a strategic focus for a water-scarce country that faces mounting climate-related stress on its resources.
Jordan’s severe water scarcity coincides with the emergence of innovative thematic issuances, including green and blue bonds focused on water infrastructure and resource management. In 2026, the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development invested US$100 million in blue bonds issued by Housing Bank, in a transaction described by EBRD as the first blue bond in both Jordan and the wider southern and eastern Mediterranean (SEMED) region. That bond finances sustainable water and wastewater management, including desalination, and aims to support a greener and more resilient economy. The new Jordan Ahli Bank deal sits alongside this blue bond activity, underlining that water security and climate resilience are now central to Jordan’s capital markets story.
Moreover, IFC has been scaling its own green funding programmes. Its recent US$2 billion global green benchmark bond, issued under the updated IFC Green Bond Framework, commits proceeds to projects addressing adaptation and resilience, biodiversity and nature, ocean and water protection, climate change mitigation, and the circular economy. The Jordan Ahli Bank transaction plugs Jordan directly into that pipeline of targeted climate capital and aligns local issuance more closely with global environmental objectives.
For investors, the Jordan Ahli Bank bond, backed by IFC’s involvement and blended finance tools, offers exposure to climate adaptation and resilience assets in a frontier market with a clear policy focus on water and resource security. As sustainable issuance in Jordan evolves from single-bank pilots to a more diversified set of green and blue instruments, institutional investors will be watching three signals in particular: the pace of repeat issuance, the depth of project pipelines in water and climate adaptation, and how far IFC’s and other development banks’ involvement helps crowd in mainstream capital into the Kingdom’s climate transition.
