- Pool the available pilot and audit data, and resource the relevant ministry capacities for information gathering and reporting. Chapter 2 suggests priorities for ministry-level actions to support performance and national targets.
- Commission green certification programmes for schools and hospitals. The Ministry of Public Works and Housing has a rating scheme for green buildings, according to the Jordan Green Building Guide. Meanwhile, the Jordan Green Building Council has also developed a rating tool for residential buildings that could be adapted to cover schools and hospitals. However, knowledge of green materials is limited, and better advocacy and support is needed to roll them out nationally. Existing schemes for schools, such as the Global Coalition for Green Schools (of which the Jordan Green Building Council is a member), could be adapted to the Jordanian context, and a similar scheme could be developed for hospitals based on international experience. Staff could be incentivized to participate if offered professional accreditation for the training received.
- Explore delegating greater authority to municipalities for energy projects and savings. Jordan’s 2015 Decentralization and the Municipality Law sets the government’s direction towards greater empowerment of subnational levels of the government. There is already growing experience with the Greater Amman municipality making efficiency and green investments, and the creation of sustainable energy access and climate action plans (SEACAPS) in several governorates. These suggest savings possible for buildings under direct control of the municipality, including offices, libraries and cultural centres as well as ‘tertiary’ buildings such as hospitals and schools. Developing capacities at the municipality level including energy managers, green procurement procedures and training to apply strict green building codes would require larger resources for municipalities (which are allocated only a small fraction of the national budget) and a mechanism to enable them to reduce their debts through energy savings.
Mandates and maintenance
At the ministry level, ownership and clear responsibilities for maintenance of solar panels and PV are key to sustainability. Where it is unrealistic for an asset to be maintained by ministry staff, it makes sense to agree service contracts with private companies. This approach would still require supervision and oversight, and clear channels of reporting and authority. Where a ministry assumes ownership, teams must be adequately resourced and mandated. Those carrying out maintenance must have access to remote monitoring to enable timely repair. Recommendations for ministry preparedness include:
- Creating a permanent, centralized energy management unit (EMU) in each ministry mandated with overseeing the performance of energy installations. This could build on the collaborative work of NRC with the Ministry of Education and of the KfW EEPB project with the ministries of public works and housing, education and health. Each ministry EMU would develop a database to collect and analyse its energy costs and consumption over time, using historical and new information.
- Assigning an energy manager at the facility or building level to meet practical targets and prepare for longer-term private sector involvement in systems upkeep. This role could be paid for through building savings, and clear responsibility would encourage maintenance and continual improvement. The energy manager can address basic matters but can also act as the focal point for each facility, ensuring better reporting and follow-up with an expert company contracted for maintenance and repair. Clear channels of communication and the ability to monitor a system in real time will facilitate this relationship.
Future energy projects in Jordan and wider humanitarian work with public buildings
With respect to lessons learned in international projects of this kind, success factors include working in inclusive, well-coordinated partnerships between government, building users and managers; being flexible to adapt to emerging realities and new facts on the ground; and institutionalizing accountability around safety, quality and maintenance. These projects also need a much longer time frame for evaluation to check if savings were achieved and reinvested, for example, or whether awareness was institutionalized and how the project affected levels of service and refugee inclusion.
Setting targets and measuring benefits
Setting targets for energy improvements and measuring their health or educational benefits is not easy given that many other factors will affect the performance and adequacy of those services. However, surveys of building staff and users, before and after implementation, can assess needs and qualitative improvements in comfort and efficiency. In addition, there are beneficial elements that projects can measure such as:
- Priority items of equipment, supplies or upgrades, agreed at the outset, which are then acquired with savings (if a savings–redistribution mechanism has been put in place) e.g. distribution of books, installation of medical equipment.
- Communal activities, e.g. building a hospital or school garden benefiting from rainwater storage.
- Training in energy efficiency and renewable energy – and ideally related issues of sanitation, water conservation and waste reuse and recycling – for pupils and staff.
- Engagement in such co-projects helps humanitarian organizations to involve staff and parents, providing opportunities to gain views and ideas, and see where the project can address particular vulnerabilities of poorer or refugee children.
Project-level considerations for work on public buildings
Humanitarian agencies are not usually well-placed to engage with energy on a national scale, but working on infrastructure in core areas, such as health and education, offers multiple gains. Improving ageing public buildings in countries that host large numbers of forcibly displaced people not only offers a way to reach vulnerable individuals, but also an opportunity to support local communities and national needs. If lessons learned from Jordan in this research are applied to urban displacement situations, planning for work on public buildings can consider:
- Using thorough assessments of a building’s infrastructure, energy and water usage patterns, and costs to plan the most effective upgrade options. Energy, water and waste audits should be conducted together. It is also important to check if there are other upgrades and maintenance planned that might affect the project.
- Consultation and inclusion of building managers, staff, users and private sector companies can bring co-learning and wider engagement. These stakeholders will not only highlight what is most needed, and what level of engagement in maintenance is feasible, but can also raise local and institutional awareness of the benefits of efficiency and renewable energy.
- Addressing energy in public buildings hand-in-hand with wider upgrades. For example, in the RE4R-NRC schools project, solar panels were accompanied by renovation work to fix bathrooms and classrooms. In scoping group discussions, hospital staff expressed the urgency of addressing medical waste and water conservation.
- Standardized tools for quality assurance to assess compliance of an installed system with engineering standards, international codes and equipment vendor requirements. A customized checklist – ideally digitized and shared with clients, funders and consultants – must be introduced for each type of system installation. A qualified third party will need to check and sign off before declaring the work complete.
- Obtaining agreements and approvals from government entities and utility companies before starting project construction work to avoid delays.
- Efficiency and passive techniques, such as draught-proofing, solar water heating and painting roofs white, are under-valued and under-resourced. Raising awareness of these measures is required to gain buy-in from funders and users alike. Building repair, upgrades and green space additions can work in tandem with efficiency improvements for the well-being of users.
- A clear and workable plan for maintenance to reduce project failures. Technological applications should be simple and require minimum maintenance. It is essential that responsibilities are clear and that those responsible for maintenance are motivated. A good option is the use of service contracts with remote monitoring that allow for fast identification of errors.
Conclusion
Communal spaces are critical for integration and socialization. In displacement situations, host countries face potential economic deficits and higher unemployment, which have been exacerbated by the food and fuel price hikes following Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022 as well as revenue and business losses during the COVID-19 pandemic. As a result, governments of refugee-hosting countries will inevitably focus on ways to reduce waste and inefficiencies in public spending.
In line with this priority, investments in infrastructure can reduce waste and inefficiencies in public spending and increase the resilience and efficiency of vital services, while creating opportunities for business and employment in growth areas. But investors and lenders tend to avoid the public sector, due to the potential lack of return on investments. In this respect, there is an opportunity to learn from the last few years and the experience of the JRP in dealing with the Syrian crisis and other ongoing international cooperation.
Pilot schemes launched in Jordan show that local private sector and smaller NGO actors with experience in this area can be important contributors to larger projects, combining socially aware, human-centric approaches with technocratic ones. Energy is a difficult area for humanitarian agencies to engage with on a national scale. However, well-planned work with local institutions and businesses to improve the state of buildings and to foster sustainable scale-up is likely to boost humanitarian agencies’ standing and relationships with local and host governments.
Successful introduction and scale-up of sustainable energy in public buildings requires a people-centred approach that focuses on improvements in education, healthcare and well-being. Only by listening to the needs of building users and managers can efficiency, renewable energy and other green upgrades be planned in a sustainable way. Incorporating consultation in efforts to improve facilities will help gain the interest and commitment of managers and users in maintaining systems. Projects can also provide an opportunity to learn about safe and sustainable energy practices, and run community cohesion activities.
Although Jordan has a specific policy and business context, the lessons from renewable energy and energy efficiency projects in the country also apply to other urban displacement situations, where authorities are looking to further energy sustainability.