In March 2014 Jafar co-launched the Centre for Economic Growth (CEG) in Abu Dhabi in partnership with the INSEAD business school. He serves as the founding chair of the CEG Business Council. He sits on the Middle East Advisory board of Carnegie Endowment and Harvard Business School, and the board of the Queen Rania Foundation  and is a founding patron of the Prince's Trust International in the UK. In the acceptance speech for the Visionary of the Year award in 2013 Jafar spoke about the challenges of youth unemployment. Jafar repeatedly spoke about youth unemployment publicly and is a founder and co-developer of the Youth Unemployment Principle Pledge Framework with the World Economic Forum. He called for strategic infrastructure investments, to play a critical role in supporting the much-needed growth and development in the region in order to tackle the major challenge of youth unemployment. Jafar also calls for economic stability as a priority in the Middle East and for the private sector and job creation as essential ingredient for political stability. In September 2014, he was co-chair of the World Economic Forum Special Meeting in Istanbul on 'Unlocking Resources for Regional Development'. He was also chairman of the March 2016 'Change in the Middle East: new lines in the sand?' conference held by the Ditchley Foundation. Jafar authored the opening chapter of "Performance and Progress: Essays on Capitalism, Business and Society" published in 2015 by Oxford University Press. The Jafar family has supported the Jafar Research Professorship of Petroleum Engineering at Cambridge University and the Jafar Centre for Executive Education at the American University of Sharjah. In 2015, the Jafar Hall and the Jafar Gallery were opened by the Prince of Wales at Eton College. Jafar also sits on the Board of Trustees at the Kalimat Foundation for Children’s Empowerment. He is the co-chair of the Business Backs Education campaign, which aims to motivate companies to increase their CSR spending, in order to close a $26bn gap which is required to help countries offer basic schooling. The campaign was launched in cooperation with UNESCO and backed by former US President Bill Clinton. Jafar is also active as a parent advocate in medical philanthropy in the rare disease field, and is the Co-founder of the Loulou Foundation, which he established together with his wife to address their eldest daughter Alia's rare disease (CDKL5 Deficiency Disorder). He was a participant and speaker at the 3rd European CDKL5 Research Conference, the 4th International CDKL5 Congress and spoke at the EURORDIS Summit in Vienna in May 2018.