Projects

Supporting Sustainable Water and Environmental Conservation Efforts in Jordan

Kaizen enhanced compliance with Jordanian environmental law to decrease pollution and increase sustainable use of water and energy in the industrial sector.

Jordan is among the world’s most water-scarce nations, with an annual water supply per capita far below the international water poverty line of 1,000 m3 per capita per year. According to the Jordan Water Strategy 2008–2022, water resources were 867 million cubic meters (MCMs) in 2007. In 2014, 64 percent of the water was allocated to agriculture, 30 percent to municipalities, 5 percent to industry, and 1 percent to tourism. The primary water resources in Jordan are surface and groundwater, with reclaimed water used on a considerable scale for irrigation, primarily in the Jordan Valley via the King Talal Dam. The country’s water strategy planned to increase the total water resources to 1,632 MCMs in 2022 with the help of the operational Disi aquifer to Amman water-conveyance project and the Red-Dead project, a hydroelectric power generation scheme coupled with sea water desalination to supply fresh water and replenish the Dead Sea. The USAID Water Reuse and Environmental Conservation Project (WREC) was responsible for providing support for wastewater reuse activities around USAID-funded wastewater treatment plants for community livelihood enhancement. The WREC aimed to extend technical support at the Wadi Mousa site and develop new sustainable water reuse pilot programs to generate income for local communities in Jordan.

			Highlights		

							Created the Industrial Knowledge Center to provide resources to industry
Empowered Ministry of Environment enforcement efforts
Fostered public-private-sector cooperation with a web-based forum
						

USAID recognized the need for water reuse efforts in Jordan to battle water shortages. Kaizen, in partnership with AECOM, supported the Jordanian Ministry of Environment (MoE) and industry to increase compliance with Jordanian environmental law and regulation, decrease industrial pollution, and increase sustainable use of water and energy in the industrial sector. Kaizen created the Industrial Knowledge Center (IKC), which employed a three-pronged approach with a web-based platform for capacity building, institutional strengthening, and consensus building in the public and private sectors. The IKC provided a database of industrial polluters MoE used to enhance enforcement capacity and applied the communities of practice approach to provide locally relevant tools and resources to Jordanian industry for sustainable use of water and energy resources. Additionally, the IKC supported a web-based forum, The Network for Jordanian Industrial Sustainability, to facilitate dialogue among regulators and regulatees and foster mutually beneficial public-private-sector cooperation in environmental sustainability. Kaizen and its partners identified areas of natural public-private cooperation from in-depth needs and capacity assessments of the MoE and Jordanian industry, which formed the foundation of the IKC’s institutional design plan.