Jordan’s experience shows that switching to energy efficient measures in schools and hospitals can improve outcomes for refugees and the communities in which they live.
The provision of healthcare, education and a range of public (mainly municipal) services is a vital aspect of international humanitarian work. However, the increasingly urban nature of displacement crises requires new strategies – more integrated with national development needs – to better address welfare and social cohesion. Facilities such as schools and hospitals offer a way to reach vulnerable people and support local communities. In developing countries, which host the majority of forcibly displaced people, many of these buildings are ageing and in poor repair, affecting the quality of the services they can offer.
The supply of energy and water is a case in point. In many developing refugee-hosting countries, unreliable or expensive access to power and water impedes essential requirements, such as hot water, the safe refrigeration of medicines and healthy room temperatures. Increased demand from new users can put additional strain on services and systems already under pressure. Improved sustainable energy and water access, as well as efficiency in public and community buildings, can therefore help to address the increasing challenge of urban humanitarian crises. Such developments can also bolster climate resilience, by sustainably enabling liveable temperatures and encouraging water conservation and reuse.
Jordan is highly dependent on fuel imports and ranks among the most water scarce countries in the world. The country’s recent experiences since the onset of the Syrian refugee crisis, and its efforts to attract aid, for both immediate needs and longer-term resilience, offer some important lessons. This paper looks at the potential gains and learnings from projects that have attempted to scale up sustainable energy use in public buildings.
In Jordan, foreign assistance for energy upgrades has benefited schools, clinics, hospitals, ministry buildings and places of worship in the last decade. Some of this has targeted humanitarian needs and energy security objectives. Progress on energy and energy-related applications in Jordan has provided an opportunity to work on short-term relief and longer-term resilience and development, while potentially reducing reliance on foreign aid and debt.
In spite of Jordan having nationwide energy access through its electricity grid, the quality of energy services in many public buildings is suboptimal. This could potentially threaten public health as temperature extremes increase as a result of climate change. Technological fixes are often simple and improve the lives and well-being of both host and displaced populations. However, entry points for potential financiers and implementers are limited, and processes to scale up renewable energy use in public facilities are complicated.
To examine this issue further, the international Renewable Energy for Refugees (RE4R) initiative (2017–22) ran both practical work in Jordan – including solar energy and efficiency upgrades for schools, implemented by the Norwegian Refugee Council (NRC) – and a policy dialogue stream to examine the feasibility of sustainable energy scale-up for hospitals (implemented by Chatham House and the West Asia-North Africa Institute).
The projects demonstrated that the use of solar photovoltaic panels and efficiency applications could reduce normal electricity bills in schools by over 90 per cent.
The projects demonstrated that the use of solar photovoltaic (PV) panels and efficiency applications could reduce normal electricity bills in schools by over 90 per cent. Hospitals could also radically decrease fuel use through solar water heating (passive solar) and solar PV, while improving reliability and safety. Dramatic reductions of electricity bills for hospitals could be achieved via wheeling projects – whereby the units of electricity generated by a renewable energy plant commissioned and owned by the customer in a different location, are subtracted from the customer’s bill – as was planned through the German government-funded South Amman project for hospitals (see Table 2).
However, to maximize potential and bring about sustainable improvements, these must be accompanied by other energy efficiency and upgrading measures, which could be implemented through private sector service contracts. This is where partnerships between global or multilateral donors, humanitarian NGOs and local civil society associations with energy expertise could prove especially beneficial.
A critical component in compiling this paper was the Inter-Ministry Committee on Scaling up Energy Efficiency and Renewable Energy for Municipal Buildings. This group included nine Jordanian ministry representatives and several stakeholders from civil society, business and multilateral organizations (listed in Box 1).
This research is based on a dynamic consultation process with the Inter-Ministry Committee, and focus group discussions with the Ministry of Health, two hospitals in Jordan as well as a wider group of financiers and humanitarian actors. The paper makes recommendations on how pioneering renewable energy projects in Jordan might be sustainably expanded, and considers the wider global experience of improving energy access for public buildings.
