8/8/2019 Jordan JES

1/6

PROFILE: CASE STUDY PA&CP 02

JORDAN ENVIRONMENT SOCIETY (JES) AND BIOGAS CAMPAIGN

WHAT IS THE ISSUE

As one of the main aims of the Biog-Gas project, theJordan Environment Society (JES) is working inassociation with the Greater Amman Municipality

towards educating and assisting the public in cleanways of handling municipal solid waste and inseparation of waste particularly in large institutions.

GUIDELINE LINKAGES

RESULTS EXPECTED OF THE ACTIVITY

Raise awareness and improve attitude and behaviourregarding Biogas production in Jordan both in thenational and the local community levels.

Have well-informed stakeholders who would adoptdifferent means of municipal solid waste managementto ensure sustainability of the biogas plant in Jordan.

Have large number of community members sensitisethe significance of substituting fossil fuels with bio-energy.

Have different sectors of the community including

women and youth involved in the project.

ACTUAL RESULTS ACHIEVED BY ACTIVITY

The preliminary results reflect a response fromthe people. This is noticed through the fact thatcontacted people have started separation andthat there are people calling and asking abouthow to separate and where to send thesegregated waste.

NARRATIVE DESCRIPTION OF INITIATIVE

The Biogas Project is a project for the reduction of methane emissions and utilization of municipal waste for energyin Amman. The goal of the project is to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in Jordan by substituting fossil fuelswith Bio-Energy (methane gas and electricity), produced from anaerobic digestion of industrial and municipal wastein Amman. This project requires the segregation of solid waste at the source and, hence, there is a need for publicawareness regarding separation of waste.

Currently JES is carrying out the Biogas Project Public Awareness (PA) Campaign. The target group of this publicawareness campaign is the general population of Jordan.

POLICY/LEGAL/INSTITUTIONALCONTEXT

There is no policy, legal, orinstitutional requirement for theintegration of public awarenessor the involvement of NGOsprojects.

The involvement of JES as anNGO and its role in publicawareness for the Biogasproject was a requirement fromthe projects funding agency.

FINANCING, RECURRENT COSTAND COST RECOVERY CONTEXT

JES gets contributionsfrom local and internationalinstitutions, a smallcontribution from thegovernment, and someadditional resources fromthe membership fees andfrom fund raising activities.

For the Biogas Project,JES got a funding of122,000 USD fromUNDP/GEF, DANIDA andthe Government of Jordan.

COMMUNICATION

The PA campaign communicates withthe target public through the media,the publication materials, andoutreach activities such as forums,camps, recycling day, school andcollege campaigns, seminar, andworkshops.

For internal communication betweenthe project team members, monthly

meetings are organized.

For communication with the client,

activity feedback report, monthlyprogress, and a final report aresubmitted.

LESSONS LEARNED

The local community is not accepting solid wastemanagement and JES is requiring a lot of communicationeffort and experience in order to out reach the target group.

The support of the government is greatly needed to enhancepublic acceptance of solid waste management initiatives.

FOR MORE INFORMATION

Eng. Hiba Irshaid

Jordan Environment Society (JES)

Tel: 00962-6-5699844

Mobile: 00962-79-5972582

E-mail: hibajes@go.com.jo

8/8/2019 Jordan JES

2/6

CASE STUDY PA&CP 02Jordan Environment Society (JES) and Biogas Campaign

1. What is the Issue

Since public awareness on solid waste management is an effort undertaken by the Jordanian non-governmentalorganization, Jordan Environment Society (JES), JES is working in association with Greater Amman Municipality

(GAM) towards educating and assisting the public in clean ways of handling municipal solid waste and inseparation of waste particularly in large institutions as one of the main aims of the Biog-Gas project.

2. Results Expected Of The Activity

Public awareness and information dissemination by all means including media coverage and to introduce conceptand benefit of recycling and reuse which are considered effective tools towards solid waste management.

One of the objectives of JES is to increase environmental awareness and education programmes that wouldpromote public awareness in the importance of conserving the environment. In the Biogas project, the publicawareness component of the project aims at:

Educating and assisting the public in handling municipal solid waste and in segregation and recyclingprocesses.

Information dissemination and awareness raising to sustain and replicate similar project in Jordan and in theMiddle East and to move biogas and solid waste management towards a vision of sustainability.

It is expected that the implementation of the public awareness for the Biogas project will achieve the followingresults:

Raise awareness and improve attitude and behaviour regarding Biogas production in Jordan both in thenational and the local community levels.

Have well-informed stakeholders who would adopt different means of municipal solid waste management toensure sustainability of the biogas plant in Jordan.

Have large number of community members sensitise the significance of substituting fossil fuels with bio-energy.

Have different sectors of the community including women and youth involved in the project.

3. Actual Results Achieved By Activity

This Biogas public awareness campaign is still an ongoing activity and, hence, there is still no evaluation of theresults achieved till now. However, according to the trainers experience, the preliminary results reflect a responsefrom the people. This is noticed through the fact that contacted people have started separation and that there arepeople calling and asking about how to separate and where to send the segregated waste.

4. Description Of Initiative

Jordan Environment Society (JES) is a non-governmental, non-profit, private voluntary society that works side byside with government institutions. It was established in 1988. Among its goals is to promote environmentalawareness of all sectors of the society and to help create individual and national commitment in dealing with

issues of the environment and rationalizing the use of its elements.

Some of the projects that JES has executed in the field of public awareness are presented in Table 1.

8/8/2019 Jordan JES

3/6

Table 1: Some of the public awareness related projects carried out by JES

No. Project Name Objectives Target Sector

1 Biogas Project Awareness in using waste gases (CH4) andbuilding abilities

Workers in allorganizations, localcommunity and students

2 National Environmental

Information and EducationSystem Program (NEIEP)

Build Abilities and awareness Youth, children, women

and farmers

3 Recycling Project Recycling paper and Environment awareness Students, schools andinstitutions

4 King Hussein EnvironmentalManagement TrainingProgramme (KHEMTP)

Upgrading Jordanian training capacities in thefield of environmental management andproviding Jordan with environmentalmanagement environmental managementexpertise towards sustainable development

Workers inenvironmental field,engineers, trainers,journalists, teachers

5 Solid Waste ManagementProject in Arab Countries

Management of household solid wastecorrectly and reinforce the concept of recycling

Students, janitors,municipalities, workersin landfills

6 Recycling Project Separating waste and recycling and publicawareness

Local community

7 Environmental Training andBuilding Capacities Unit

Training trainees in environmentalmanagement

Workers inenvironmentalmanagement

This case study addresses the Biogas Project Public Awareness (PA) Campaign currently carried out by JES.The Biogas Project is a project for the reduction of methane emissions and utilization of municipal waste forenergy in Amman. The goal of the project is to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in Jordan by substitutingfossil fuels with Bio-Energy (methane gas and electricity), produced from anaerobic digestion of industrial andmunicipal waste in Amman.

The target group of the public awareness campaign for the Biogas Project is the general population of Jordanincluding: households, university students and school children, teachers and trainers, environmental NGOs whowill benefit from the training, media representatives, commercial and industrial sector, hotels and restaurants,women sector, decision maker, Ministry of Education for curricula development, and farmers.

The activities implemented to raise public awareness on this issue of Biogas and solid waste segregation involvedmedia campaigns, publications, and outreach activities. These activities are evaluated and monthly, quarterly andfinal reports are prepared for these evaluations. These activities aim at:

To sensitise general public in the field of solid waste management, recycling and segregation throughdifferent mass media tools.

To reach broader circle of potential stakeholders through workshops, seminars, and promote an outdooreducational events in close cooperation with other NGOs.

To establish regional and global contacts with specialised organisation through various means of informationexchange, electronic subscription membership in one of the renowned organisations.

To raise awareness of students through preparing primary school education material on solid wastemanagement, Biogas energy, and waste segregation and recycling within school curricula.

To conduct several outreach activities to enhance awareness in the use of digested organic waste forfertilisation purposes by involving agricultural sector. The small family digester unit at the university of Jordancan be used as a good dissemination pilot model to serve this model.

To manage waste recycling and enhance local recycling development grant programme mainly forhousehold, school, restaurants, hotels and commercial sectors.

5. Policy/Legal/Institutional Context

There is no policy, legal, or institutional requirement for the integration of public awareness or the involvement ofNGOs in this specific Biogas project or any other project. The involvement of JES as an NGO and its role in publicawareness for the Biogas project was a requirement from the projects funding agency especially that the project

8/8/2019 Jordan JES

4/6

requires the separation of waste. So, JES in association with the Greater Amman Municipality was given the roleof public awareness.

6. Financing, Recurrent Cost and Cost Recovery Context

The sample projects presented in Table 1 are financed by a variety of local and international institutions some ofwhich are the German Friedrich Naumann Foundation, GEF (Global Environmental Facility), UNDP (United

Nations Development Programme), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), World UniversityServices of Canada (WUSC), Arab Fund for Economical and Social Development in Kuwait, and DenmarkGovernment.

Also, JES gets a small contribution from the government, namely from the Ministry of Finance. It also gets someadditional resources from the membership fees and from fund raising activities such as Environmental ImpactAssessment training workshops and clean up days.

As for the Biogas Project, it is funded by UNDP/GEF, DANIDA (Danish International Development Assistance)and the Government of Jordan. The value of the fund for this Biogas PA campaign is 122,000 USD.

7. Communication

As mentioned above, to communicate with the target public of the PA campaign, the following approaches are

used:

1. The media campaign which involves TV snap shots, advertising messages on Jordan Radio, an Arabicdocumentary film, and a website to be registered in one of the international organisations;

2. The publication materials that include posters, newsletters, brochures, recycling wheel, and a coloring bookfor students; and

3. For the outreach activities there are a variety of activities such as forums, camps, recycling day, school andcollege campaigns, a major seminar for the Biogas Project, and workshops for the media, educators andcurricula developers, legislators, and NGOs. In addition, there will be training for JES branches and trainingof trainers from other NGOs.

For internal communication between the project team members, monthly meetings will be organized to follow upthe progress of work, ensure compliance with work plan and to make the necessary modifications if necessary. Bythe end, an evaluation meeting will be held for all stakeholders of the public awareness component in order todiscuss the process and the impact of the activities. Clear records and documentation of all component activitieswill be kept to facilitate reporting.

As for communication with the client, the following reports are used:

Activity feedback report which includes all materials prepared for the public awareness activity;

Monthly progress report to be submitted to the Project Administrative Director, UNDP and SteeringConsultative Committee; and

Final report.

8. Lessons Learned

Up to this stage of the project implementation, the following lessons were revealed to the trainers:

The local community is not accepting solid waste management and JES is requiring a lot of

communication effort and experience in order to out reach the target group.

The Biogas project solved the problem of Russeifa landfill by providing an economic return and greaterawareness for the need of EIA for a landfill before its construction and operation.

The support of the government is greatly needed. For example, it would have been a great help ifGreater Amman Municipality distributed containers to help in the separation of biodegradable and non-biodegradable material.

8/8/2019 Jordan JES

5/6

The following are few pictures il lustrating sessions of public awareness workshops for the biogas project.

8/8/2019 Jordan JES

6/6