The research questions:

Can wastewater be effectively managed to improve the benefits to wastewater farmers and reduce negative health impacts?

Is it possible to achieve this by mobilizing relevant stakeholders to identify and address issues ranging from sanitation and wastewater management to on-farm irrigation and fertilizer application practices?

Objectives

The overall objective of the action is to contribute to the improvement of livelihoods of urban communities in Bangladesh and Sri Lanka, through integrated sanitation, wastewater management and agricultural use, for improved agricultural output, reduced environmental pollution and lessened food chain contamination.

The specific objectives relate to three main areas:

• To improve knowledge generation and sharing, to strengthen the capacity of local stakeholders at various levels, including community members, government agencies, NGOs, community based organisations (CBOs), scientists and practitioners, and to improve collaboration between them, through the establishment of learning alliances (LAs).
• To minimise health risks by reducing urban water pollution through the development and implementation of participatory action plans for appropriate sanitation and wastewater management, in conjunction with improved household and food hygiene.
• To improve the livelihoods of poor farmers through the responsible utilisation of domestic wastewater in agriculture and to reduce the associated health risks to farmers and consumers of this agricultural produce.

Methods

At implementation level, the approach will be through participatory action research (PAR). The PAR methodology will allow for the identification and implementation of interventions and the provision of improved sanitation services and wastewater agriculture, and for learning, sharing and capacity building of the different stakeholders.

The formation and use of Learning Alliances will enhance the PAR methodology and enable wider capacity building, exchange of knowledge and learning. A Learning Alliance is understood to be a “process undertaken jointly by research organisations, donor and development agencies, policy makers and the private sector through which good practices in both research and development, are identified, shared, adapted and used to strengthen capacities, improve practices, generate and document development outcomes, identify future research needs, potential areas for collaboration and inform both public and private policy decisions” (Lundy and Ashby, 2004). In this action, the LA’s will also include CBOs and community members as the project works mostly at local level and therefore requires the full participation of the local community, who are also the end users. LAs will be set up at various levels in addition to the ones at community level, mainly corresponding to various administrative levels, in order to interlink the process, and ensure that the actions are owned at various levels and sustained.

This process will cover wastewater generators, managers, handlers and users and address sanitation, management and mitigatory issues leading to the development of Participatory Action Plans (PAPS) to be implemented with the full involvement of stakeholders.

Brief abstract of key results (where relevant):

The project is 9 months from commencement and the work so far is mainly in gathering baseline information and understanding and analysis of stakeholders, and has reached the stage of launching Learning Alliances. The documented information is listed as intermediate outputs below.

Project leader

Researchers

Collaborators

Major Donors

Project Duration

Location