Rokia Raslan
Power Infrastructure in Egypt. Copyrights: Rémih
The past summer has seen something that many Egyptians had long forgotten: rolling power blackouts. Reports have cited that these month-long power cuts have affected everyday life for Egyptians in many ways. The outages stranded passengers on the Cairo Metro, raised concerns about night time safety and contributed to water supply interruption. Over a period of over a month the frequency of power cuts increased dramatically and were mapped by the crowd-mapping website, Kahrabtak. Power outages in some areas lasted 18 hours a day, hitting poorer residential districts especially hard and prompting protests in Fayoum, Gharbiya and Giza among others.
Continue reading Empowering Egypt
Karim Elgendy and Joumana al Jabri
An infographic comparing the two extreme urbanisms of Dubai and the Gaza Strip. While the two urban regions demonstrate surprising similarities when their geographic and demographic data are compared, their political and socio-economic conditions have produced urbanisms that are radically different and equally unsustainable.
A version of this infographic was first published by Portal 9 Magazine under “Reading Gaza Through Dubai”. Copyrights for the infographic are reserved for the Authors above. No reproduction or republishing of theinfographic or any part thereof is permitted without prior written consent from the authors. To discuss this infographic, please join Carboun’s discussion group on Linkedin. For news and updates on sustainability in cities around the region, join Carboun’s Facebook page or follow its Twitter feed. Continue reading Two Unsustainable Urbanisms: Dubai and Gaza
Karim Elgendy
In celebrating this year’s World Green Building Week, Carboun has released a visual guide to energy use in buildings with the goal of explaining the overall state of energy use in the region and the significance of buildings as a major sector in energy consumption. It also aims to comparatively explain the nuances of the major trends of energy use in buildings as a baseline analysis for further research. The visual guide, which was researched and designed by Karim Elgendy with additional contributions from a small research team, was based on raw data obtained from the International Energy Agency and the World Bank. Copyrights for all infographics are reserved for Carboun. No reproduction or republishing of any infographic or part thereof is permitted without prior written consent from the author.
Continue reading A Visual Guide to Energy Use in Buildings in the Middle East
Marie Tyl
The institutional and legal setups of the Lebanese power sector define the decision making mechanisms, and identify the role of different stakeholders from the national electric utility, Electricite du Liban (EDL), to the Council of Ministers. In their current form, such laws and regulations do not grant EDL the tools and capabilities that would enable it to operate at the required standards and deliver reliable 24/7 electricity. Nor do they entice the utility to optimize its performance. Most importantly, the current setup largely exposes the power sector to political influence and their short-sighted calculations, which leads to the inefficient management of human resources, among other adverse results. Continue reading Institutional and Legal Challenges to 24/7 electricity in Lebanon
Marc Ziade
As Lebanon’s economy recovered from the Civil War, demand grew substantially and surpassed additional capacity of the current electricity generation levels. Power shortages progressively became the norm with some regions barely receiving 12 hours of electricity supply on some days.
The technical challenges that prevent sufficient volumes of electricity from getting reliably delivered to end-users span across the entire power system value chain: from insufficient capacity to large losses in the transmission and distribution networks. Continue reading Technical Challenges to 24/7 electricity in Lebanon
Hiba Abu Al Rob, Majd Jayyousi, Khaled Abu Ajwa, and Rashed Al Nasa’a
The water situation in Jordan is in need of dramatic changes to ensure positive outcomes in national water resource management. Already nearing crisis levels, it is estimated that any slight change in current levels or quality of water will have a significant effect on agriculture, industry, nutrition, health and ultimately the security of the Kingdom.
This is a story that everyone has heard before. It is a story at the heart of Jordan’s neighborhoods and villages where ramifications are felt every day, affecting the lives of thousands of individuals. Men and women, both young and old, have learned the meaning of water scarcity the hard way, as places and communities they call home have transformed into daily battlegrounds of uncertainty and disappointment. To tell the story of water in Jordan, one would travel far and wide, yet this is an attempt to tell the story through three tales of struggle, determination, and success in facing one of the biggest challenges this century.
The fields surrounding the village of Al Mughayyir, in northen Jordan, bear witness to the effect of water scarcity which has created a shift in the social pattern of local villages, with many abandoning agriculture and farming and moving to neighboring cities. Photo Copyrights Mohammad Asfour
Continue reading Stories of Water Scarcity in Jordan
