Platform for African – European Partnership in Agricultural Research for Development

Tuesday, March 6, 2012

Water Harvesting Technologies Revisited

Water Harvesting Technologies Revisited. Potentials for Innovations, Improvements and Upscaling in Sub-Saharan Africa

WHaTeR is a four-year collaborative project funded by the European Commission through the 7th Framework Programme (FP7) for Research and Technological Development (RTD). The project officially started on the 1st January 2011.

The main objective of the WHaTeR project is to contribute to the development of water harvesting technologies that are sustainable under dynamic global and regional pressures of current trends and that strengthen rainfed agriculture, rural livelihoods and food production and security in Sub-Saharan Africa.

Partners
The project is coordinated by the Centre for International Cooperation, VU University Amsterdam (Netherlands) and involves two other European and five African organisations, namely Newcastle University (United Kingdom), Stockholm Resilience Centre (Sweden), University of Kwazulu Natal (South Africa), Sokoine University (Tanzania), Southern and Eastern Africa Rainwater Network (Kenya), National Institute for Environment and Agricultural Research (Burkina Faso) and Arba Minch University (Ethiopia).

Activities:
Project activities are divided over 14 Work Packages. The first Work Package covers project management and the second comprises a situation analysis - through revisits to water harvesting sites in 15 African countries studied previously by participating organisations . The next four Work Packages focus on detailed research and technology development activities on cross-cutting themes (environmental sustainability; technology development; livelihood improvement; uptake and upscaling; and global and regional impact) and will be conducted together with four country-based Work Packages (in Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, South Africa and Tanzania). One Work Package will concentrate on stakeholder communication and outreaching activities, and the final Work Packages consists of synthesis and dissemination of project results, including production of guidelines for WHTs.

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