Amman, Sept 9 (Petra) – Minister of State for Public Sector Development Badria Al Balbisi on Tuesday announced the entry into force of the Regulatory Impact Assessment (RIA) system, a new framework aimed at improving the development of legislation and public policies and ensuring that objectives are achieved efficiently and effectively.
Speaking on behalf of the prime minister at the launch event organized by the Impact Assessment Unit at the Prime Ministry, in cooperation with the Ministry of Planning and International Cooperation and the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), Al Balbisi said the system was not merely a new regulatory tool but a turning point in Jordan’s administrative and legislative reform. She said it reflected the government’s commitment to embedding the principles of good governance in decision-making.
Al Balbisi said the "good regulation" framework translated national priorities into practical steps to improve the quality of laws and policies, ensure coherence and integration, and enhance their impact on citizens, the business environment and the economy. It also aimed to bolster public trust and raise government efficiency.
"In this context, we are moving beyond producing laws and policies towards focusing on their quality and actual impact," she said. "Legislation is not an end in itself but a tool for improvement and change, and it must be built on analysis, forward planning and continuous evaluation to enable more effective decisions." She added that the system embodied a national vision to modernize public administration, strengthen transparency and accountability, and align with directives from His Majesty King Abdullah II and HRH Crown Prince Al Hussein bin Abdullah II as part of the public sector modernization roadmap.
Real change, she said, was not achieved by systems alone but by leaders who turn reform into a sustainable practice and a deeply rooted culture.
Al Balbisi underlined the role of secretaries-general and directors-general as a cornerstone of this transformation, stressing that the success of the new system depended on their commitment to adopting it as an institutional method. She urged them to champion the change by instilling a "review before decision" culture and building their institutions’ capacity in impact assessment tools.
Minister of Planning and International Cooperation Zeina Toukan said her ministry had supported the Ministry of Digital Economy and Entrepreneurship in establishing an online communication platform to allow all stakeholders, including the private sector and civil society, to review draft laws and policies and submit feedback, thereby taking part in decision-making.
Toukan added that the ministry would continue, in cooperation with partners, to conduct periodic reviews of the system’s implementation and update the impact assessment policy guide adopted by the government in 2022 so that it remained a flexible, living reference able to adapt to new challenges.
Guido Kemmerling, chargé d’affaires at the German Embassy, said it was important to keep reviewing policies to respond to constant change. He noted Jordan’s adoption of political, economic and administrative reforms and said the challenge was to move from policy and legislation to practice and implementation in order to deliver results for citizens and advance the economic modernization vision.
Kemmerling added that the government’s reform vision required buy-in from all public employees, stressing the importance of political will in shifting towards implementation and the role of decision-makers in setting an example to turn reform into lived reality.
The event featured a presentation by Mai Ulayan of the Good Regulation Unit at the Prime Ministry on institutionalizing and activating regulatory impact assessment functions, followed by a panel discussion with three government institutions on successful case studies.
The system was approved in February to ensure the quality of laws and policies, legislative stability, and evidence-based decision-making. It came into force on Sept. 2, six months after its publication in the Official Gazette.
It includes three main types of assessment: ex-ante, conducted before a decision is issued to clarify expected impact; ex-post, applied after implementation to measure whether objectives were met; and baseline, which analyzes the economic, social and environmental dimensions of policies.
//Petra// AF
