Don’t replicate colonial power dynamics in impact finance, says Impact Jordan
A new report published by Impact Jordan argues understandings of impact must be relevant to local experiences and culture, rather than defined by global north frameworks.
Impact finance in Jordan should prioritise developing models and products rooted in Indigenous ethical frameworks, rather than adapting foreign practices as it does currently, according to ecosystem builder Impact Jordan.
A report published by Impact Jordan, titled Finance, Ethics and the Return of Meaning, argues that if impact finance only aligns with commonly used global frameworks – like the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and Environmental, Social, and Governance (ESG) practices – without enough consideration of local culture, it risks lacking legitimacy and resulting in a lack of traction with local communities.
Billed as a “critical exploration of Jordan’s evolving journey in impact finance,” the report found the country has a vibrant impact ecosystem at the “dawn” of its development and maturity, but one which is heavily shaped by donor agendas and global benchmarks.
“Local actors retrofit global metrics to Jordanian realities, often bypassing deeper ethical reflection or cultural legitimacy or adopting metrics determined by their investors or funders,” said the report.
We’ve got to be more honest sometimes and ask ourselves the question as to whether that type of money is right
Impact Jordan is a voluntary collaborative initiative of actors in the impact finance ecosystem in the country. It includes a number of funds, think tanks, ecosystem builders, incubators and impact consultancies, such as Expectation State, Alfanar Venture Philanthropy and the Jordan Capital Investment Fund. The research for the report took 10 months to complete and was funded by the International Development Research Centre in Ottawa, Canada.
Focusing impact finance in Jordan on what the report defines as “localisation” (prioritising local ethics, experiences and legitimacy over global frameworks) rather than “contextualisation” (making international tools acceptable, relevant and implementable in specific countries) will require rethinking what is measured, who decides and how legitimacy is earned, it says.
Speaking to Pioneers Post, Andrew Gharaibeh Collingwood (pictured), co-managing partner of Expectation State and co-founder of Impact Jordan, said: “If a holder of money from outside Jordan wants to be able to come into a market like Jordan and really invest in impact that is locally relevant and locally scalable, there has to be a trade off,” referring to the need of giving up some control over the definitions, tools and metrics of impact to align with local values. “If there’s not an ability to do that, we’ve got to be more honest sometimes and ask ourselves the question as to whether that type of money is right.”
A political act to avoid replicating colonial power dynamics
Although “ethical localisation” of impact finance would involve developing “locally defined metrics, institutions and narratives grounded in moral traditions like Islamic finance, tribal ethics and relational wellbeing”, the report argues doing so would be as much a political act as a technical one.
The report makes explicit that localisation of impact finance isn’t an outright rejection of global frameworks, but Gharaibeh Collingwood is clear that working towards the SDGs can’t become a top-down exercise in dictating what impact means to local communities.
He said: “The SDG framework was built and designed in what feels like a very, very different world. The Jordanian government might say the SDGs provide a really valuable framework to be able to demonstrate its progress across a number of key indicators, but if that's all we do, we're missing the point somewhere. It's about what sits underneath that.”
The report highlights that while the Jordanian government has demonstrated “progressive leadership” in Islamic finance regulation, green finance policy and other innovative financing tools, “its engagement with impact-related initiatives remains limited.”
Regulators must move beyond compliance and toward facilitation of ethical localisation of impact, argues the report. Recommendations in the report to do so include endorsing new forms of due diligence and risk assessment that include social legitimacy, not just financial exposure, and supporting experimentation with ethics-first metrics and community accountability frameworks.
Evolving Islamic finance
In 2024 Global Impact Investing Network (GIIN) research found the global impact investing market had reached US$1.57tn. Gharaibeh Collingwood pointed out that just 1-2% of that is currently allocated to the Middle East and North Africa (MENA).
However, the Impact Jordan report estimates the Islamic finance market to be worth more than US$2.5tn, with 77% of that deployed in MENA (other recent studies have estimated the size of the market to be between US$4tn and US$6tn). Gharaibeh Collingwood said the research had revealed how Islamic finance tools and principles are being applied to deliver what would be termed “impact outcomes” elsewhere in the world.
Why should ethical finance in the region adapt to global north frameworks, asked Gharaibeh Collingwood, when there is such obvious alignment with Islamic Finance?
Zakat – the Islamic financial obligation requiring Muslims to donate 2.5% of qualifying accumulated wealth annually – can be used to attract individual giving, Gharaibeh Collingwood said. “Demonstrating the value that you can build from that in terms of commercial and social returns is delicate, but this stuff is being pioneered,” he added.
Spreading localised impact finance across the MENA region
Gharaibeh Collingwood emphasised that Impact Jordan will act on the research to support the process of ethical localisation. He said: “It’s not good enough to just throw stones and say your money is not being thought about correctly without taking any responsibility.”
The report said if Impact Jordan extends its membership to more Jordanian organisations and those aligned with Islamic finance, engages with a broad range of ecosystem actors, formalises its governance structure and invests in shared metrics design it can “catalyse a more durable and legitimate impact ecosystem”.
Jordan’s experience is relevant to countries across the Arab region, said the report, and a framework for Arab impact finance grounded in shared values like tribal legitimacy and postcolonial critique could rebalance the dynamics between international investors and local funding recipients throughout MENA.
In 2025 Impact Jordan was a founding member of the Arab Impact Network, an initiative aiming to build an inclusive movement of impact organisations and “change the region’s narrative from one of scarcity to opportunity”.
Gharaibeh Collingwood believes the network is well placed to build momentum behind a localised impact practice: “We need to work from a position of inclusion and identify as many tools, products and actors as possible that share the same values and the same cultural framing, and build from the bottom up. I think the role that the Arab Impact Network can play is by providing that space to be able to welcome people in.”
Top image: A woman buys oranges in a market in Amman, Jordan (credit: Adam Cohn, Flickr)
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