Water Sector Green Growth Action National Action Plan 2021-2025 (GG-NAP).

This Green Growth National Action Plan (GG-NAP) for the water sector is a part of the Jordanian agenda, including five other Action Plans, aiming at implementing the National Green Growth Plan (NGGP) in the main six green growth sectors (the others are Agriculture, Energy, Tourism, Transport, and Waste). This GG-NAP identifies 16 sector sub-objectives that serve to mainstream the overarching green growth objectives into water sector policies and investments, taking into consideration the close linkage between the water sector and the other sectors. In particular, the five national green growth objectives (1. Enhanced Natural Capital; 2. Sustainable Economic Growth; 3. Social Development and Poverty Reduction; 4. Resource Efficiency; and 5. Climate Change Adaptation and Mitigation) are translated into the following 16 sector sub-objectives (i) augmenting water supply for priority economic activities through decentralized infrastructure solutions, such as rainwater harvesting (RWH) or reclaimed wastewater; (ii) ensuring a reliable supply of water to protect and restore critical water-related ecosystems, including forests, wetlands, rivers, aquifers, and lakes; (iii) improving the quality of surface and groundwater by enforcing laws to prevent dumping/pollution, and/or offering incentives for clean-ups/restoration; (iv) introducing demand management measures such as efficiency improvements, loss reduction, water reallocation, and incentive structures to save/conserve water; (v) strengthening the capacity of the public sector in managing water sustainably and efficiently; (vi) improving the sector’s financial sustainability through measures including NRW reduction, revised water tariffs, innovative and market based-business models; (vii) ensuring equitable, reliable, and affordable access to clean water and sanitation services for all; (viii) building resilience to climate-change-related water challenges among vulnerable groups; (ix) supporting and strengthening the participation of local communities, women, and marginalized groups in improving water management; (x) increasing water-use efficiency across all sectors including agriculture, industries, and municipal sectors; (xi) reducing water losses in municipal water services and in conveyance systems to improve their efficiency in delivery; (xii) improving EE in water operations such as water and WWT and pumping systems; (xiii) increasing the quantity of water and wastewater treated for further recycling and reuse; (xiv) improve drought resilience by expanding decentralized supply and introducing demand management measures across sectors; (xv) improve flood resilience through flood risk management measures, through appropriate flood mitigation infrastructure and measures to respond effectively to floods; (xvi) reducing GHG emissions in the water sector through the use of RE and EE in water production and distribution systems. The Plan provides for two types of interventions (i) Enabling Action, to enable stakeholders (government and/or others) to be more prepared for future green growth policy or investment implementation; and (ii) Investments, leading to investment in a specific project that will support the achievement of one or more of the sector green growth sub-objectives.
To make agriculture more productive and sustainable, the Action Plan aims to focus on irrigation through (i) improving water efficiency in agriculture, through continuing the practice of drip irrigation; (ii) improving the volume of reclaimed water for agriculture use thus redirecting potable water used in irrigation for domestic uses to alleviate the water supply deficit; (iii) improving irrigation efficiency in the Jordan Valley; (iv) improving engagement and awareness with water users directly, as well as addressing the price of water, affordability and access to finance for water efficient technologies; (v) substituting groundwater and surface water with treated wastewater in the agriculture secto; and (vi) managing a financing facility for rain water harvesting (RWH) in Jordan’s municipalities for small agricultural purposes.
In order to increase the resilience of livelihoods to disasters, main interventions will (i) increase awareness about climate change, collect local knowledge and combine it with international best practices and introduce appropriate water efficiency measures such as the construction of infrastructure and implementation of community-based stewardship approaches; (ii) support the shift towards more sustainable production and consumption patterns to be implemented by SMEs and industries, giving rise to low carbon and climate resilient societies; (iii) increase willingness of end user stakeholders to accept purified wastewater reuse; (iv) increase the resilience of displaced persons and host communities to climate change-related water and climate change challenges; (v) promote large-scale reservoirs and seawater desalination; and (vi) reduce water losses and increase water savings.
As for the Governance, the main objective is to update the institutional process for developing projects, empower water sector stakeholders with the necessary conceptual understanding of green growth as it pertains to the water sector to inform better decision making, and support the participative design and implementation.