Water and Development Partnership Programme: Six projects selected for funding

Description: Despite the scientific advances in climate sciences and technologies, there is still a lack of engagement of vulnerable communities that are directly impacted by climate extremes such as drought and consequent water scarcity. The project aims to enhance drought resilience by strengthening the capacity of stakeholders on drought monitoring using traditional and indigenous knowledge and participatory research approaches.

Focus theme: River basins and deltas

Project coordinator: Amin Shaban, The Lebanese Centre for Water and Environment

Focus region: Jordan, Yemen, Egypt, Lebanon, Tunisia, Nigeria, Ethiopia

Description: The project aims to create and nurture a community of open-minded and engaged early career and advanced scholars that i) jointly advance the understanding of water diplomacy and develop approaches to transform water diplomacy for more equitable and sustainable outcomes, and ii) share this knowledge with a wider water diplomacy practitioners’ community that will make a change on the ground. The knowledge gained in the project will be shared with relevant decision-makers through targeted capacity development and science-policy dialogue.

Focus theme: River basins and deltas

Project coordinator: Jenniver Sehring, IHE Delft

Focus region: Jordan, Nigeria, Sudan, India, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan

Description: The project addresses how resource-poor smallholder farmers can be supported to access and use water stored in sand rivers in Sub-Saharan Africa in socially-just and ecologically-sound ways, that not only enhances their wellbeing but also their resilience to climate and socio-economic uncertainties and shocks.

Focus theme: Water for food

Project coordinator: Pieter Van Der Zaag, IHE Delft

Focus region: Ethiopia, Kenya, Niger, India, Mozambique, Zimbabwe

Description: Building on the work carried out by IHE Delft on Water Accounting Plus (WA+) – which aims to bring open-access remote sensing data-driven based analysis to decision makers at the river basin – this project aims to diversify, jointly further develop, and combine remote sensing applications with other data to support the efforts of a more diverse groups of stakeholders at different scales, including grassroots level.

Focus theme: River basins and deltas

Project coordinator: Claire Michailovsky, IHE Delft

Focus region: Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Kenya, Mali, Niger

Description: Two-thirds of the rural population in the Global South depends on yields from smallholder farms, which use production systems that have not become more productive or efficient. They face several challenges because of climate change impacts such as extreme weather conditions and unpredictable rainfall patterns. They also lack access to resources including credits, markets and technology. In addition, they suffer from fluctuations in market pricing and political instability.  The project aims to enable marginalised groups of smallholder farmers can make timely informed decisions to improve their livelihoods through increased revenue.

Focus theme: Water for food

Project coordinator: Sajid Pareeth, IHE Delft

Focus region: Kenya, Ethiopia, Uganda, Burkina Faso, Niger, Egypt, India, Tunisia

Description: To date, policy efforts to use (ground)water in a (more) just and sustainable manner in agriculture centre on highly intensive irrigated agriculture, and  focus on regulating water demand through, for instance, the spacing of wells or legal limits to how much water can be abstracted. This project builds on the premise that transformations to water sustainability in agriculture require a shift to less intensive crops and farming systems.

Focus theme: Water for food

Project coordinator: Tavengwa Chitata, IHE Delft

Focus region: Uganda, Palestine, India, Morocco, Algeria