Category Archives: Sustainable Development

شح المياه في منطقة الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا: محفز للمنَعة والابتكار

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لقد كان الماء – وسيظل – عاملًا رئيسيًا في تشكيل الحياة على الأرض. فهو محرك رئيسي لنهوض الحضارات وتفككها وتهجيرها. أظهر التاريخ أن الماء يمكن أن يكون سببًا للسلام والصراع بين الأمم. ومن منظور عملي أكثر، تقع المياه في قلب برامج التنمية الاجتماعية والاقتصادية والبيئية. تعد منطقة الشرق الأوسط وشمال إفريقيا المنطقة الأكثر ندرة في المياه في العالم، وهو وضع يتفاقم بسبب تغير المناخ وعدم الاستقرار السياسي. في حين أن تأثيرات هذا التحدي المائي المتضخم أضحت أكثر وضوحًا، فمن المتوقع أن تتسارع شدة ووتيرة التأثيرات غير المباشرة وغير المقاسة على الأمن والاستقرار في المنطقة في السنوات القادمة. تتميز معظم الموارد … Continue reading →

How Ethical Sourcing Trends Are Reshaping the Jewelry Industry

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The jewelry industry is experiencing a major shift. As the debate around ethical sourcing gradually picks up speed, the sector is experiencing changes, shifts, particularly in how diamonds and gemstones are mined, traded, and even sold. Think about where your last piece of jewelry came from. Would you wear it if you knew its origin story involved exploitation Companies now prioritize conflict-free supply chains and fair-trade practices. It’s transforming the diamond market. These changes aim to address long standing issues while meeting the growing consumer demand for transparency. Stay tuned as we explore the innovative practices reshaping this dazzling industry. … Continue reading →

3 Important Environmental Metrics For Your Company

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For companies that are focused on ESG (environmental, social, governance) sustainability reporting, one of the most important things is the metrics. They help demonstrate that the report is accurate and stakeholders can use it to make the right decisions, whether for investment or buying targeted products. With the right metrics, it is also easy for companies to evaluate their progress and track goals that demonstrate their operation efficiency and impacts. There are four main areas of sustainability that companies focus on: human, economic, social, and environmental, and each comes with its own metrics. In this post, we will look at … Continue reading →

Go Big! The Challenge of Large Scale Restoration of the Badiya

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The badiya[i] is a region of desert, semi-desert and steppe covering 500,000 square kilometers (200,000 square miles) of the Middle East, including parts of Syria, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Iraq.[ii] It accounts for 85% of the land area of Jordan[iii] and 55% of Syria.[iv] To the south it borders and merges into the Arabian Desert.[v] Much of the Badiya has become severely degraded by historic misuse over hundreds of years.[vi] Trees were cut and used for buildings, but more intensively for firewood and making charcoal. This pressure and centuries of overgrazing by herds of thousands of camels, goats, and sheep … Continue reading →

The Role of Indigenous Knowledge and Innovations in Water Management

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Our ancestors have created astounding water management systems and applications that helped them combat the harsh climate and scarce natural resources in many parts of this universe. Read on to know how ancient civilizations used indigenous knowledge in water management, and how innovation and entrepreneurship can ward off the water crisis facing the entire MENA region. The Golden Past Within MENA and since the 4th century BCE, the strongest civilizations made it through arid and semis arid conditions mainly due to their robust water technologies and hydraulic engineering. In the 14th century, the deliberations of the great Tunis-born social scientist … Continue reading →

Water Scarcity in Jordan: An Overview

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Being one of the most arid countries in the Middle East, Jordan is facing severe water shortages. The current per capita water supply in the country is 200 cubic meters per year which is almost one-third of the global average. To make matters worse, it is projected that Jordan’s population (currently at 6 million) will reach 9 million by 2025 causing a drastic decline in per capita water availability to measly 91 cubic meters. Read on to know more about water scarcity in Jordan:   State of the Affairs Groundwater resources account for 54% of Jordan’s total water supply, and … Continue reading →

Water Shortages in MENA: A Trigger for Resilience & Innovation

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Water has been – and will continue to be – a key shaper of life on earth. It is a major driver for the rise, dismantle, and displacement of civilizations. History has shown that water could be a cause of peace and conflict among nations.  From a more practical perspective, water is at the heart of socioeconomic and environmental development agendas. The MENA region is the most water-scarce region in the world, a situation being magnified by climate change and political instability. While the impacts of such amplified water challenge are becoming more visible, the indirect and unmeasured impacts on … Continue reading →

Paper Bag Boy’s Message to the World

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Abdul Muqeet, also known as the Paper Bag Boy, has risen from being just another ordinary student to an extra-ordinary environmentalist. Ten-year old Abdul Muqeet has demonstrated remarkable commitment to saving the environment in the United Arab Emirates and elsewhere, and has been a poster-boy for environmental campaigns in the Middle East. Here he shares his views on environment, recycling and public awareness. It is said that you should break your goals down into small steps which you can accomplish each day. Set a goal, and approach it in a simple and basic manner. When I started my environmental campaign couple of years … Continue reading →

القيمة الإستراتيجة للأرض

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القيمة الإستراتيجة للأرض في تأمين الأمن الغذائي والمعيشي للأجيال الحالية والمقبلة جعلها تكون محور الشعار الذي رفعه المجتمع الدولي للإحتفال باليوم العالمي لمكافحة التصحر الذي صادف في 17 يونيو 2018 “للأرض قيمة حقيقية – استثمرها”، الشعار تجسيداً لمضمون “الهدف 15 – حماية النظم الإيكولوجية البرية وترميمها وتعزيز استخدامها على نحو مستدام، وإدارة الغابات على نحو مستدام، ومكافحة التصحر، ووقف تدهور الأراضي وعكس مساره، ووقف فقدان التنوع البيولوجي”. مقاصد الهدف تؤكد في بعض محاورها على ضمان حفظ وترميم النظم الإيكولوجية البرية والنظم الإيكولوجية للمياه العذبة الداخلية وخدماتها، ولا سيما الغابات والأراضي الرطبة والجبال والأراضي الجافة، وضمان إستخدامها على نحو مستدام، وذلك … Continue reading →

Towards New Partnerships in Water Management

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Market-exchange economy and territory-bound nation state were not designed to accommodate a communication revolution that can envelop the globe and connect everyone and everything on the planet simultaneously. The result is that we are witnessing the birth of a new economic system and new governing institutions that are as different from market capitalism and the modern territorial state as the latter were from the feudal economy and dynastic rule of an era ago. Markets, in effect, are linear, discrete and discontinuous modes of operation. The new communications technologies and partnerships, by contrast, are cybernetic, not linear. The operational assumptions that … Continue reading →

ROOTA and the 4 E’s – Helping a Marginalized Community in Cairo

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Rising Out Of The Ashes (ROOTA) is a Canadian Registered Charity with the objective of alleviating poverty and improving education.  For the onset, ROOTA started by helping the marginalized community of the Zabaleen (which stands for Trash Collectors in slang Egyptian) of Manshayet Nasser.  Work with our boots on the ground The Association for the Protection of the Environment, we service a population of around 45,000. What is ROOTA’s goal?    Education, and Income Generating Projects We achieve this through the 4 E’s – Environment, Education, Empowerment and Employment – which are interacted and work in unison.  The Zabaleen are … Continue reading →

Everything You Should Know About Desertification

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As the global population crosses 7 billion, the pressure on land has increased exponentially in recent decades. Food security, habitat and livelihood are the buzz words these days. The paradox is that despite ever-increasing demand for land, more than 10 million hectares of arable land turns into desert every year. The major factors responsible for desertification are deforestation, over-grazing, unsustainable cultivation methods and poor irrigation practices, apart from climate change. According to Mr. Luc Gnacadja, executive secretary of the United Nations Convention to Combat Desertification, “Land degradation is a global phenomenon, with 78 percent of the degrading land taking place in … Continue reading →