The purpose of the project
The purpose of the project is to identify and innovate context specific WHTs, that are affordable for smallholder farmers, and through integration in local adaptation plans contribute to resilience towards water shortages. This includes presentation of best WHTs practice and facilitation of dialogue between
smallholder farmers and relevant duty bearers at district government level, to influence development of local adaptation plans in target districts to include action plans for water access for smallholder farmers with low-cost WHT as a specific solution.
The project focuses on water access through water harvesting and storage, and as it will appear in the description of the project strategy, the project partners are of the opinion, that water harvesting should go hand in hand with agroforestry and agroecology to preserve, restore and build ecosystems and soil resilience. Correct solutions of low-cost WHT systems will vary from community to community, district to district, and the project partners experience from the organic Farmer Family Learning Group (FFLG) approach is that cocreation among smallholder farmers is core to sustainability and that locally generated knowledge that embraces existing (indigenous/traditional) knowledge and new insights offer the best solutions for small-scale farmers’ adoption of new technologies.
The project contributes to the Sustainable Development Goals (SDG): Goal 1 ‘No Poverty’, Goal 2 ‘Zero Hunger’, Goal 5 ‘Gender Equality’ and Goal 13 ‘Climate Action’ and Goal 17 ‘Partnership for the Goals’.
The project builds on the lessons derived from the ESFROMA program which has been running since 2019. The project is expected to officially start on August, 2024.
Primary targets
Who: 2000 HH organized in 100 FFLGs in 5 target districts28. At least 1 person from each household, amounting to at least 2000 individuals, will actively participate in the training, innovation, and monitoring of the context-specific WHT. Given women’s crucial role in food production and provision, the aim for
participants is a balance between men, women, and youth. The household of smallholder farmer families in Uganda and Tanzania on average 5 members, amounting to approximately 10.000 individuals that are benefitting from the intervention. The 100 FFLGs that are implementing the WHTs are FFLGs that before the project have matured to a level where they are sustainable entities that without external support are capable of continuing to develop, and have a high degree of social capital and innovation capacity.
How the target group will participate: 2000 members from 100 FFLGs will participate in the process of identifying, testing, and innovating relevant WHT, supported by an external FFLG facilitator. Through participatory monitoring, the systems are improved and innovated in closed and intervened cooperation
between farmer groups and the external facilitator. Experience from the FFLG approach is that knowledge co-creation and experience sharing among the FFLG members is core to the sustainability and progress of organic farming.
Other target groups include the ESFROMA partners, FFLG facilitators, government officials at local and national levels, CSOs
Intervention logic of the project
DEVELOPMENT OBJECTIVE: Increased resilience to climate change-related water shortages among smallholder farmer families in climate-vulnerable districts through the development of and advocacy for context-specific low-cost water harvesting technologies (WHT) contributing to sustainable water management sectors in Uganda and Tanzania.
Outcome 1: Context-specific low-cost WHTs innovated by 2000 smallholder farmer families organized in 100 farmer groups in five districts.
Outcome 2: Low-cost WHTs for smallholder farmers are integrated into local adaption plans in 5 districts. This outcome will include the advocating for adaptation plans available in specific districts to include action plan for water access for smallholder farmers with the low cost. This can be achieved by holding advocacy meeting at the local level and have a discussion on how to address the water shortage challenge in the area.
Partners of the project
The project is funded by CISU through Organic Denmank. Implementing partners for Tanzania isTOAM which is the lead agent in Tanzania and UWAMWIMA. In Uganda the project is implemented by Caritas Kampala Tanzania which is the lead agency for Uganda coordinating the rest of the partners, The Uganda Rural Development and Training programme (URDT), Great Lakes Organic Farmers Association (GLOFA), and Kilimo Organic Farmer Learning Centre (KOFLEC).