The Ministry of Municipality and Urban Planning (MMUP) has launched a short online survey asking Qatar residents to weigh in on the effectiveness of its anti-littering campaign.
It’s been one year since signs went up around Qatar, warning passersby that “We all see you…You are not alone.”
The campaign initially caused confusion and concern among some residents, who interpreted the signs to mean they were being watched by the government, rather than a reminder to maintain public hygiene.
Some of the billboards around town have depicted a cartoon silhouette of a boy peeking out from behind a table, and another one of the boy peeking through a telescope.
The text on the billboards next to the cartoon boy says in Arabic and English, “We all see you/You are not alone.”
Other billboards depict the cartoon child next to litter on the street and on beaches, alongside slogans encouraging residents to refrain from throwing garbage and spitting in public.
The campaign is being supported by QatarGas, which has given QR3 million to fund the ads for three years. The company will also have a “supervisory and follow-up” role on the project, company spokesman Mansour Al Nouaimi told the Qatar Tribune last year.
The survey
In the survey, which is currently only in Arabic and consists of multiple-choice questions, respondents are asked to evaluate the concept of launching a major anti-littering campaign in Qatar; whether the campaign succeeded in raising the people’s awareness regarding public cleanliness; how far the campaign reached residents geographically; its artistic design; its content and issues; and what the campaign should focus on in the second phase.
Littering has continued to be a problem in many of Qatar’s public spaces, including beaches and parks.
While it is against the law to throw one’s trash on roads and other areas, the number of people fined for violating public hygiene laws appears to be declining – from 201 people in 2011 to 120 people in 2012.
The MMUP has previously said its focus for the “We all see you” campaign was not to punish people, but to raise awareness about the importance of keeping public places clean.
Still, last summer, the ministry announced that those who dump garbage at the roadside, on beaches or at other public places in Qatar risk incurring a fine of up to QR5,000.
Repeat offenders or those who do not pay their fines risk legal action being taken against them, which could involve up to one month in jail and fines of as much as QR10,000.
The MMUP has also set up an Office of Public Prosecution to deal with environmental and municipal violations, coinciding with the launch of the “We all see you” campaign.
Its jurisdiction includes laws governing public hygiene, food safety, smoking bans, animal welfare and water and energy conservation.
Thoughts?
ugly.
CREEPY
Here is mine: pathetic
MMUP and Qatargas – WE ARE WATCHING YOU to see how you modify YOUR behaviour, in particular the messaging for the second phase of the campaign.
its terrible and kind of hard to get.
As with every initiative and campaign in Qatar, a valid idea but there is no follow up. Until the “This does not concern me” mentality is gone nothing will ever change.
Awful campaign, difficult to comprehend. Freaky, ‘big brother is watching you’ feel. I presume what they wanted to do was to create the sense that we are all in this together and that it is the community’s responsibility to reinforce positive behaviour and conversley discourage negative behaviour. If it was, then definitely didn’t work, so much money wasted.
I thought is an ISF campaign :))
I thought that it was an intimidation tactic, i.e. reminding people that they will face consequences if they litter. I think it would have been better if they made a ‘we are all in this together’ billboard. This doesn’t really get any message across except that the government is in charge.
Good campaign for a good purpose – agree that it’s a little ambiguous with the Big Brother reference, but overall this is about social education and creating positive change.
Sounds like a Google Translate job. It must sound better in Arabic.
No, still creepy.
3 million riyals for this? We wanted 1 million riyals to set up a studio to develop Qatar and we were rejected and these guys spent 3 million on useless creepy ads… Why?
Shouldn’t the survey be in English too?
Useless. I saw more people spitting on the road than before the campaign! And what does buying your frozen grocery first has to do with being seen all the time?!
There are always congregants around Sword Arch and Barahat Al Jufairi near Souq Waqif on weekends and the litter is atrocious. Also to note no garbage cans in the first place. Perhaps add some garbage cans and it might help the situation.
Creeps me out.
Someone’s PR staff has to get sacked
Seriously
Coincidence that only yesterday Doha News was reporting on a campaign to stop money being wasted?
I bet the QG staff are wishing that the 3m was divided up among them and paid as an annual bonus? Or donated to charity?
3M riyals wasted. Just fine people who litter and they wont do it again.
Sooo many people litter, yanni… what to do? What to do?
Complete and utter lack of enforcement on anything in this country, except speeding, cos they can get a camera to do that. Often all the traffic police do, instead of fining offenders, is escalate traffic by trying to direct it at roundabouts.
The idea behind it was good – reduce littering and increase public hygiene, but the actual campaign was very poorly executed. It was creepy and left you wondering what they wanted you to do or be aware of.
It was obvious there were no focus groups or research done on this outreach program or how the various nationalities of Qatar would view this and as a result it was a waste of money. .
Yes, the English was extremely clunky and lacking any clarity.
The survey is of dubious value since it’s an opt in and only in Arabic. If you want to see a quick translation of the questions here is the (often strange) google translation link:
https://translate.google.com/translate?hl=en&sl=ar&tl=en&u=https%3A%2F%2Fdocs.google.com%2Fforms%2Fd%2F1DwK2Lgbp3-rFICuFvIgicQhenIYvoem8wtD6_svlVCU%2Fviewform
The “yup” and “do not” response choices are “yes” and “no” a weird consequence of google translate’s crowd sourcing and suggested translations features. I think you would have to submit via the original form for it to work properly. But as I said such web surveys are not generally accurate measures (there are certain conditions in which opt in panels are potentially useful measures but this does not meet those criteria). It is odd that Dohanews frequently highlights these online surveys but not one peep about the World Public Opinion regional conference held at Qatar University earlier this week. Several presenters from Northwestern journalism dept and dohanews even mentioned in one of them.
I should note also that the WAPOR conference was the first time it was held in this region. I found a link to twitter feeds on it here: https://twitter.com/hashtag/WAPORdoha?src=hash
We are watching you
– Drones
Everyday sat in traffic you see doors flying open left right and centre with people gobbing on the floor
Spittering?
It worked for me. Now I slaughter my sheep in the designated area’s.
and I’ve learned not to buy dented cans! brilliant
Big Brother
Agenda
Creepy
Unfriendly
Biased
3 million riyals down the drain. Campaigns do not work in this country. Has there been any that has worked so far?! If decisonmakers aren’t going to try to solve the real problems, better to ignore the issues then to spend money on useless campaigns.
Anything that reduces people from throwing their trash out of cars as they drive, onto the beautiful beaches, spitting out their car doors and windows and emptying their noses as they walk. We all live tightly packed together, we do all see each other. Take your litter home and put it in your bin, even from your beach barbeque. Stop spitting, it looks disgusting and spreads germs, we really do not want to see you emptying out your nose as you walk, go to the toilet. The next ad they do should be about selfishness.
Litter is the physical evidence of how little people identify with and care about a state that heaps injustice and exploitation on them from the moment they step off the aircraft. The message is loud and clear to all expats but particularly the blue collar works – that you are not valued and you will never be part of our society. How can you possibly motivate such people to take pride in their surroundings, particularly when they come from countries where the lack of sanitation and public services is a part of everyday life?
Dear MMUP, Give me just 1,000,000 QAR and I guarantee you I will deliver a campaign precisely 3456% more effective than this one. K, thx, bye.
Ambiguous message. Creepy wording. Not at all astheatically appealing. All in all a flop IMO.
Get an English copywriter for the life of God. Horrible campaign. Does not make any sense if only to spread fear like “someone is watching over you” …
In English-it is seriously creepy. Also misused-because the phrase-you are not alone was meant for abused children or those suffering-it was meant to make them feel they are not alone and can get help! Maybe the way it is done is Arabic makes it appropriate in Arabic-but not in English. The concept is good though. Pity the survey is not in English.
I really wish that they would put big canister on the
beaches where most of the public goes these days. However it’s a shame to see that public still
litters on the beautiful beaches including on Cornish in Qatar.
And remember you must not slaughter your animals outside the slaughter house if it is closed.