Jordan’s National Expert Committee hosts its third meeting to support MENALINKS implementation
On 11 February 2026, the National Expert Committee (NEC) of the MENALINKS programme in Jordan reconvened in Amman for its third official meeting. Chaired by the Ministry of Energy and Mineral Resources (MEMR), the session focused on reviewing MENALINKS programme activities for the past year and the upcoming events of 2026 and discussing the institutional roles and responsibilities for demand side management.
The role of National Expert Committees in MENALINKS
The National Expert Committees (NECs) play a strategic role in guiding the implementation of the MENALINKS programme across partner countries. Comprising 10–20 experts from key stakeholder groups—including ministries, regulators, grid operators, industry, academia, and financial institutions—the NECs serve as national sounding boards that provide targeted feedback, support data provision, and help align programme activities with local priorities. The committees meet regularly to review progress, comment on intermediary findings, and contribute to communication and dissemination efforts within their respective institutions. Their input is instrumental in identifying synergies with existing initiatives and ensuring that MENALINKS outputs are relevant, actionable, and widely adopted.
Meeting conclusions and 2026 priorities
The meeting served to highlighting core deliverables that established Jordan’s baseline for industrial flexibility: a sector needs assessment, a screening identifying six priority industrial sectors, a regulatory framework assessment benchmarked to international best practice, and an assessment of the relevant finance landscape.
You can find public deliverables in our Knowledge Base
Looking ahead, NEC members and the MENALINKS team aligned on 2026 priorities and on translating analysis into actionable pathways. Potential areas include developing policy and regulatory recommendations for an Interruptible Load Programme (ILP), clarifying potential models for demand aggregation in Jordan’s market context, advancing cost recovery and cost/benefit allocation approaches, and continuing technical work—including modelling capacity-building and sector-level flexibility assessments.
The NEC underlined that recommendations must be tailored to Jordan’s specific industrial and regulatory realities, with attention to subsector constraints. The meeting also advanced institutional alignment clarifying anticipated roles and responsibilities across a ILP implementation in Jordan.
MENALINKS will continue structured stakeholder engagement in 2026, including upcoming capacity-building milestones and sector-focused discussions, to ensure that recommendations remain practical, evidence-based, and ready for adoption.