SADAQA hosts roundtable on best practices for childcare support

AMMAN — SADAQA, a non-profit organisation, has recently organised a roundtable discussion on possible tax incentives for childcare support in cooperation with UN Women and Bank Al Eithad, according to a joint statement.

The discussions tackled amendments to Article 72 of the Labour Law, and saw the participation of government representatives, civil society organisations, employers and representatives of working families.

The overall aim of the event, according to the statement, was to explore possible government-led and tax-based initiatives to ensure the government and private sectors’ commitment to implementing Article 72’s provision of daycare services.

“Now that amendments to articles of the Labour Law, including Article 72, will soon go into effect... we want to move forward with the implementation of the National Framework for Workplace Daycares by discussing the possibility of offering tax incentives to working families and companies that abide by the law and provide childcare services,” Randa Naffa said during the event, co-founder of SADAQA.

The event also included a presentation of SADAQA’s white paper on tax incentives, which outlined solutions to encourage tax reallocation to boost female economic participation rates, according to the statement, which added that participants discussed possible strategies the government could adopt to increase the number of companies that would be able to offer childcare facilities to their employees.

The discussions were funded by the EU Regional Trust Fund to the Syria Crisis and the Italian Agency for Development Cooperation, according to the statement.