PROFILE: CASE STUDY PA&CP 02

JORDAN ENVIRONMENT SOCIETY (JES) AND BIOGAS CAMPAIGN

WHAT IS THE ISSUE GUIDELINE LINKAGES

• As one of the main aims of the Biog-Gas project, the
Jordan Environment Society (JES) is working in
association with the Greater Amman Municipality
towards educating and assisting the public in clean
ways of handling municipal solid waste and in
separation of waste particularly in large institutions.
RESULTS EXPECTED OF THE ACTIVITY ACTUAL RESULTS ACHIEVED BY ACTIVITY
• Raise awareness and improve attitude and behaviour • The preliminary results reflect a response from
regarding Biogas production in Jordan both in the the people. This is noticed through the fact that
national and the local community levels. contacted people have started separation and
• Have well-informed stakeholders who would adopt that there are people calling and asking about
different means of municipal solid waste management how to separate and where to send the
to ensure sustainability of the biogas plant in Jordan. segregated waste.
• 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.
NARRATIVE DESCRIPTION OF INITIATIVE

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

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

POLICY/LEGAL/INSTITUTIONAL FINANCING, RECURRENT COST COMMUNICATION

CONTEXT AND COST RECOVERY CONTEXT
• There is no policy, legal, or • JES gets contributions • The PA campaign communicates with
institutional requirement for the from local and international the target public through the media,
integration of public awareness institutions, a small the publication materials, and
or the involvement of NGOs contribution from the outreach activities such as forums,
projects. government, and some camps, recycling day, school and
• The involvement of JES as an additional resources from college campaigns, seminar, and
NGO and its role in public the membership fees and workshops.
awareness for the Biogas from fund raising activities.
• For internal communication between
project was a requirement from • For the Biogas Project, the project team members, monthly
the project’s funding agency. JES got a funding of
meetings are organized.
122,000 USD from
UNDP/GEF, DANIDA and • For communication with the client,
the Government of Jordan. activity feedback report, monthly
progress, and a final report are
submitted.
LESSONS LEARNED FOR MORE INFORMATION
• The local community is not accepting solid waste Eng. Hiba Irshaid
management and JES is requiring a lot of communication Jordan Environment Society (JES)
effort and experience in order to out reach the target group. Tel: 00962-6-5699844
• The support of the government is greatly needed to enhance Mobile: 00962-79-5972582
public acceptance of solid waste management initiatives.
E-mail: hibajes@go.com.jo
 CASE STUDY PA&CP 02
Jordan 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-governmental
organization, 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 in
separation 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 concept
and 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 would
promote public awareness in the importance of conserving the environment. In the Biogas project, the public
awareness component of the project aims at:

• Educating and assisting the public in handling municipal solid waste and in segregation and recycling
processes.
• Information dissemination and awareness raising to sustain and replicate similar project in Jordan and in the
Middle 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 following
results:

• Raise awareness and improve attitude and behaviour regarding Biogas production in Jordan both in the
national and the local community levels.
• Have well-informed stakeholders who would adopt different means of municipal solid waste management to
ensure 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 the
results achieved till now. However, according to the trainer’s experience, the preliminary results reflect a response
from the people. This is noticed through the fact that contacted people have started separation and that there are
people 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 by
side with government institutions. It was established in 1988. Among its goals is to promote environmental
awareness 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.
 Table 1: Some of the public awareness related projects carried out by JES

No. Project Name Objectives Target Sector

1 Biogas Project
2 National Environmental
Information and Education
System Program (NEIEP)
3 Recycling Project
4 King Hussein Environmental
Management Training
Programme (KHEMTP)
5 Solid Waste Management
Project in Arab Countries
6 Recycling Project
7 Environmental Training and
Building Capacities Unit
Awareness in using waste gases (CH4) and Workers in all
building abilities organizations, local
community and students
Build Abilities and awareness Youth, children, women
and farmers
Recycling paper and Environment awareness Students, schools and
institutions
Upgrading Jordanian training capacities in the Workers in
field of environmental management and environmental field,
providing Jordan with environmental engineers, trainers,
management environmental management journalists, teachers
expertise towards sustainable development
Management of household solid waste Students, janitors,
correctly and reinforce the concept of recycling municipalities, workers
in landfills
Separating waste and recycling and public Local community
awareness
Training trainees in environmental Workers in
management environmental
management

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 for
energy in Amman. The goal of the project is to reduce emissions of greenhouse gases in Jordan by substituting
fossil fuels with Bio-Energy (methane gas and electricity), produced from anaerobic digestion of industrial and
municipal waste in Amman.

The target group of the public awareness campaign for the Biogas Project is the general population of Jordan
including: households, university students and school children, teachers and trainers, environmental NGOs who
will 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 involved
media campaigns, publications, and outreach activities. These activities are evaluated and monthly, quarterly and
final reports are prepared for these evaluations. These activities aim at:

• To sensitise general public in the field of solid waste management, recycling and segregation through
different mass media tools.
• To reach broader circle of potential stakeholders through workshops, seminars, and promote an outdoor
educational events in close cooperation with other NGOs.
• To establish regional and global contacts with specialised organisation through various means of information
exchange, electronic subscription membership in one of the renowned organisations.
• To raise awareness of students through preparing primary school education material on solid waste
management, 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 for
fertilisation purposes by involving agricultural sector. The small family digester unit at the university of Jordan
can be used as a good dissemination pilot model to serve this model.
• To manage waste recycling and enhance local recycling development grant programme mainly for
household, 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 of
NGOs in this specific Biogas project or any other project. The involvement of JES as an NGO and its role in public
awareness for the Biogas project was a requirement from the project’s funding agency especially that the project
requires the separation of waste. So, JES in association with the Greater Amman Municipality was given the role
of 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 of
which are the German Friedrich Naumann Foundation, GEF (Global Environmental Facility), UNDP (United
Nations Development Programme), Canadian International Development Agency (CIDA), World University
Services of Canada (WUSC), Arab Fund for Economical and Social Development in Kuwait, and Denmark
Government.

Also, JES gets a small contribution from the government, namely from the Ministry of Finance. It also gets some
additional resources from the membership fees and from fund raising activities such as Environmental Impact
Assessment 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 Arabic
documentary 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 book
for students; and
3. For the outreach activities there are a variety of activities such as forums, camps, recycling day, school and
college campaigns, a major seminar for the Biogas Project, and workshops for the media, educators and
curricula developers, legislators, and NGOs. In addition, there will be training for JES branches and training
of trainers from other NGOs.

For internal communication between the project team members, monthly meetings will be organized to follow up
the progress of work, ensure compliance with work plan and to make the necessary modifications if necessary. By
the end, an evaluation meeting will be held for all stakeholders of the public awareness component in order to
discuss the process and the impact of the activities. Clear records and documentation of all component activities
will 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 Steering
Consultative 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 greater
awareness 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 if
Greater Amman Municipality distributed containers to help in the separation of biodegradable and non-
biodegradable material.
The following are few pictures illustrating sessions of public awareness workshops for the biogas project.