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Public Awareness
Public Awareness is primarily a means of
informing and educating water users about the
seriousness of the water situation in Jordan. In doing
so, it is a tool for managing water demand and can be
used to help rationalize water consumption and encourage
conservation at the household, business or farm level.
Public awareness programs could substitute for other
demand management methods, including raising water
prices, including water saving devices, and rationing
water supply, which may be less acceptable to the
general public. Public awareness is also a means of
directly confronting the degradation of the resource by
having end users understand its implications and seeing
themselves as caretakers who can protect the quality of
water, neither contaminating it themselves nor
permitting others to pollute it. It also has critical
components, since public awareness must be carried out
with some organizational setting, which involves budget
allocations and determination of roles of government,
non-governmental organizations, and the private sector.
Carrying out public awareness programs is
important to Jordan for a number of reasons. There is a
general lack of understanding and concern about the
value and scarcity of water resources. Any significant
changes in how water is conserved or protected require
public support and participation. Public awareness
programs seek to conserve and protect water resources
through understanding the water situation and the
shortages and scarcity of the resource. They raise
community understanding and support for water allocation
among competing sub-sectors and improve the likelihood
of the public's helping to develop and accept new
policies. By [providing information which seeks
behavioral modifications, these programs may assist in
the reduction of illegal water connections and the
general misuse and damage of water measurement devices.
There is also a need to increase understanding of water
conversation issues in Jordan among policy-makers and
the private sector.
The Government believes the public
awareness programs are a successful way of reaching the
Jordanian public as a way of modifying undesirable
behavior and reinforcing positive efforts. By supporting
public awareness programs that encourage the
conservation and protection of the Kingdom's limited
water resources and observation of its regulations, the
Ministry of Water and Irrigation can better achieve the
Government's objectives in the water sector through the
direct involvement of the people.
Within the Ministry of Water and
Irrigation, an active public awareness program is
rapidly gaining acceptance. Policy implications are
related primarily to how the Government will collaborate
with non-governmental and other organizations. Given the
already collaborative relationships, at least at a
policy level, there needs to be an educational campaign
put into effect to inform the public about the value of
water for them and for the well being of the country for
the sustainability of life, and for the economic and
social development. Likewise facts about water in Jordan
need to be disseminated, such as the cost incurred in
priority the service, and the mounting pressure of the
population growth on the water resources. Economic
measures may be adopted to reinforce public awareness.
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