Overview of projects coordinated by the East Africa Office
IWMI has commenced quite significant activities since its establishment in the sub-region. In addition to its linkage to Africa wide and Global projects, there are considerable sub-regional and country specific projects ongoing, completed or in the pipeline. The portfolios of these projects are the following:
Currently Ongoing Projects:
Agricultural Water Management(AWM) Solutions Project
Agricultural Water Management(AWM) Solutions Project: Assessing the feasibility and potential impacts of smallholder agricultural water management interventions in Sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia
The project aims to improve the livelihoods of millions of smallholders by providing investors, policymakers and implementers with concrete knowledge and tools to make informed investment decisions on small-scale agricultural water management interventions. The project will assess promising interventions and their ‘market potential’, analyze which technologies ‘fit’ in which environments, gauge potential trade-offs, and recommend out-scaling strategies. A key output from the project will be a set of small-scale AWM investment toolkits for selected countries in Sub-Saharan Africa (Ghana, Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Zambia, Tanzania) and states in India (West Bengal and Madhya Pradesh).
This is a 3-year project implemented by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) in close collaboration with the United Nations Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), International Development Enterprises (IDE), the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), the Stockholm Environment Institute (SEI), and numerous local partners.
CP19-Upstream Downstream
This project aims improving agricultural practices and conserving water at all levels by all stakeholders, both within Ethiopia and downstream communities dependent on the Nile
Nile BFP
The project aims to identify high potential water management interventions within the basin, and to answer the key question “What are the opportunities to develop and manage water for agriculture in the basin in order to reduce poverty?
See website: http://bfpnile.iwmi.org/
Rethinking Water Storage for Climate change adaptation in Sub-Saharan Africa:
The project is therefore engaged in multi-disciplinary research conducted at different scales in the Nile and Volta Basins, by developing methods for evaluating the effectiveness and suitability of all water storage types under existing conditions and a number of future climate scenarios.
Improving Water Productivity of Crop-Livestock Systems of Sub-Saharan Africa
This project aims to optimize productive use of water to increase incomes and improve the environment, within crop-livestock systems in the semi-arid areas of Southern Africa and the Blue Nile basin.
CP 36:Improved Livelihoods with Dam Management
The wise and sustainable use of dams requires consideration of a large number of complex and inter-related issues and poses intricate technical and political problems. This project is investigating the use of modern decision support systems (dss) for the planning and management of dam operation. The study is investigating which dss are most appropriate for the complexity of large dam operation and how these dss are best used to ensure successful stakeholder participation, and assess the costs and benefits of different operating options.
CP 37: Increasing water-use efficiency for food production through better livestock management – The Nile River Basin
The research project is to develop concepts and tools to account for livestock use, depletion and degradation of water in river basins, to assess livestock-water productivity and to use this knowledge to improve overall allocation and use of water and land resources for all users and at scales ranging from the household and community to the basin level.
System wide Livestock Program
Membership of Livestock Program Group, the steering committee of SLP.
Agricultural Water Management Technologies
This project is intended to bring together stakeholders working in small scale irrigation, water harvesting and micro irrigation fields. Through establishing a national level steering committee and organizing symposia, exhibition and workshop it would try to understand existing positive and negative lessons in the agricultural water management in Ethiopia. Through stakeholders’ consultations, it explores key areas of study and research that would create impact in AWM.
CGIAR-NBI Synergies
This project deals with stakeholders’ consultation process to identify gaps in knowledge and opportunities for research and capacity building that would directly support the NBI programs.
Capacity Building: In addition to collaborative works with the various organizations and Institutions, IWMI has been supporting 5 Ph.D. students. Over 20 Ethiopian and Students from the North completed their M.Sc. studies through IWMI’s financial support and or supervision and guidance. Currently 3 additional M.Sc. students are working under IWMI support. Over 70 irrigation professionals trained on diagnosis and M &E of SSI in Kenya and Ethiopia.
Completed Projects:
Improving CGIAR Effectiveness through Knowledge Sharing - Knowledge Sharing in Research
This project worked throughout the CGIAR to generate, share and apply knowledge on appropriate and useful knowledge sharing in research approaches. The goal was to bridge the gap between research and its beneficiaries, increase the adoption rate of research recommendations and improve the performance of Centers and their partners. The KS in Research project worked closely with scientists, users and project partners who are open to incorporating KS approaches into new or ongoing collaborative research initiatives.
See website for information: www.ks-cgiar.org
Irrigation Impact on Poverty and Environment
A multi-year research and capacity building project applying new methodologies for assessing the impacts of irrigation on poverty and environment and finding ways to enhance the positive impacts.
Integrated Management of the Sudd Wetland
The Sudd Wetland, located in Southern Sudan supports a diversity of ecosystems services. The area is attracting many of the displaced people after the peace agreement of 2005. The goal of this project is to develop research proposals for knowledge generation, sharing and application activities that will contribute to improvements in the livelihoods of the local inhabitants in the Sudd wetland, while ensuring ecosystem resilience, and efficient water use.
Improving Productivity and Market System for Small Holder Farmers in Ethiopia-IPMS
IWMI is contributing to the ILRI led and CIDA funded project in relation to small scale irrigation, water harvesting and development of training module under a project known as IPMS.
Dissemination of research results in semi-arid and arid ecosystems with a focus on sustainable water resource management in Ethiopia (WATERAN)
This project is funded under the EU 6th Framework and has been operating since 2006. It has an overall goal focused on ‘bridging the gap between research publication and implementation of research results. In addition to disseminating state of the art research results in sustainable water management, the WATERMAN project is concerned with the ways in which research results, particularly within the arena of water, are conveyed to, made available and used by a multitude of stakeholders within Ethiopia and also neighbouring countries.
http://waterman.boku.ac.at/
RIPARWIN
The RIPARWIN project investigated competition for water in the upper part of the Great Ruaha River. It is tested the theory that improving irrigation efficiency and productivity in upstream areas would “free up” water for downstream needs.
CP 28: Multiple uses of water
Systems that allow efficient and effective supply of water to various stakeholders and that interact with various providers of water related services ('multiple use systems') are probably highly desirable from the perspective of using scare water most efficiently and also from the perspectives of gender equity and improving livelihoods. The MUS-project carries out scientific action research to validate this statement about a water-innovation. The project works through so-called learning alliances in 5 river basins around the world to develop locally-specific innovations and build capacity for scaling up.
Assessment of Experience and Opportunities of Small Scale Irrigation, Micro Irrigation and Water Harvesting in Ethiopia: a CIDA supported project completed with providing proposal for innovative up-scaling. See working paper 98. http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/pubs/working/WOR98.pdf
Ground Water Hydro-Ecology of Ethiopia: Desk study conducted end of 2004 and beginning of 2005. Supported through Comprehensive Assessment (CA)
Wastewater Addis: A Rapid assessment of the extent and significance of wastewater irrigation around Addis Ababa City has been conducted and completed in January 2005 as one of 30 Cities studied under the Comprehensive Assessment (CA)
Assessing Health Impacts of Small Reservior in Burkina Faso
Collection of primary data to understand health impacts of small reservoirs in Kaya and Koubri (Burkina Faso)
Health Impact Assessment of Small Dams in Morocco
Participatory health impact assessment of a small dam in Morocco: methodology development and community mobilization
Small Dams and Malaria: Entomological studies to determine the malaria transmission potential around 6 earth dams in Northern Tigray (Dutch-supported through SIMA, complemented with IWMI core funds, terminated end 2005. Links to other projects on health impacts of small dams in Burkina Faso and Morocco).
SSA-CP Lake Kivu Pilot Learnning Site (PLS)
A consortium is established to develop a research proposal on Lake Kivue PLS. This is a joint project of NARIs, SWMNet, and CG Centers
IWMI worked for one year on this project, but IWMI no longer a partner on this project.
Improving Irrigation Performance in Africa
a project designed to improve the capacities of farmers and field level staff in enhancing performance of small and medium scale irrigation schemes (“APPIA” French-supported) in Kenya and Ethiopia
SIMA - Integrating malaria control interventions with development strategies in Mwea