Thematic areas

  • Water for Health
    Improve and upscale the provision of adequate, affordable and inclusive water and sanitation services, particularly to marginalized groups and/or underprivileged areas.
  • River Basins and Deltas
    Secure, equitable, and ecologically sustainable governance and management of (transboundary) river basins and delta regions, including coastal areas and aquifers.
  • Water for Food
    Sustainable, and climate-change-resilient irrigation practices and agro-ecosystems to support the livelihoods of actors involved in small- and medium-scale agriculture as well as to conserve biodiversity and ecosystem services.

Focus Regions

  • Horn of Africa
    Focus Countries: Ethiopia, Kenya, Somalia, South Sudan, Sudan, Uganda
  • The Middle East
    Focus Countries: Egypt, Iraq, Jordan, Palestine, Yemen
  • The Sahel
    Focus Countries: Burkina Faso, Mali, Niger, Nigeria

Featured Stories

  • Beneath beliefs: Water access and gender dynamics in three Nigerian communities

    In some communities of Nigeria’s southern State of Akwa Ibom, menstruating women and mothers of twins are denied access to drinking water due to a belief that the village’s only water source would dry up if they used it. Such practices demonstrate how water access is shaped by social and cultural norms.

    The project WaSH GENDER aims to address such norms by sparking community-led transformative action. It seeks to understand and address gendered cultural norms that create barriers to water access and negatively impact the health, workload and overall well-being of women. The project, initiated by a network of Nigerian citizens that includes academics, lawyers, non-governmental organizations (NGOs) workers and local municipalities, is supported by IHE Delft’s Water and Development Partnership Programme.

  • Blog: From mining to sharing groundwater resources: the case of Mird in the Draa Valley_ South of Morocco

    Ahmed is a young farmer of 25 years who lives in the Draa Valley, in the South East of Morocco. He started in 2012 with one hectare of water melons, and gradually expanded over the years to five hectares. According to Ahmed, water melons were introduced in the region in 2006 and attracted both foreign investors and young local farmers. Whereas the young farmers usually cultivate a couple of hectares of watermelons, which they sometimes combine with vegetables used for the family consumption, foreign investors often cultivate large land plots, and only produce water melons. Once they have pumped up the groundwater and exhausted the fertile soil they can easily move to another land plot. While observing dropping groundwater levels, the tribe to which Ahmed belongs decided in 2016 to ban the settlement of foreign investors in the region. This essay is a first attempt to explore and describe this action. To do so, we rely on various field visits which were carried out over 2019 and early 2020. These insights were combined with multiple in-depth phone interviews with three young farmers who are part of this collective action and 20 phone interviews with water melon farmers and laborers who are from other villages in the region. All farmers and laborer’s we talked to are men. When asking if there are also young female farmers, we were told that they rare in the region. The various answers of the interviewees lead us to focus in this essay on the motivations, perceptions and values, which led to this ban and related new practices of groundwater management.

  • Caught in the Crossfire: How Conflict in Sudan threatens the Jebel Aulia Dam and the Surrounding Communities?

    This blog discusses the heightened risks facing the Jebel Aulia Dam (JAD) amidst the ongoing conflict in Sudan, which began in April 2023. The war between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the Rapid Support Forces (RSF) has targeted critical infrastructures, including the JAD, a key strategic point for water management, irrigation, and hydropower generation. Due to military activities, the dam's operators abandoned their posts, leaving the dam's gates in fixed positions, which poses severe flood risks as inflows from upstream bodies like Lake Victoria increase. The blog highlights the socio-economic significance of the JAD, emphasizing its role in agriculture, fishing, and local trade. It draws comparisons with other recent dam failures to illustrate the catastrophic potential of dam failures during wartime. The analysis underscores the compounded impact of climate change and conflict on dam safety, revealing that, without proper operation and maintenance, there is a high risk of flooding that could devastate surrounding communities. Urgent flood preparedness measures, early warning systems, and improved maintenance are needed to mitigate potential disasters and protect livelihoods.

  • Community-led action boosts water security on Maldivian outer islands

    With their white sandy beaches and clear turquoise waters, it's natural to envision life on the islands of the Maldives as an aquatic paradise nestled in the Indian Ocean. But this paradise comes with challenges. Drinkable water, despite the seemingly water-abundant environment, is in short supply, particularly on the small, remote outer islands that are far removed from the bustling life of the capital, Malé. Climate change, urban development and water pollution have all resulted in a fragile and largely contaminated water system, making daily life hard for island residents.

  • Impact story: Back with the floods – can we embrace flood-based farming systems in the face of changing climate and growing population?
    Every year, the vast floodplain downstream of the majestic Mekong River is flooded for up to three months, owing to the heavy rainfall brought by the active South-West Monsoon. While the floodwater presents itself as a major safety risk, local inhabitants have, through many generations, developed highly adaptive livelihoods systems that help benefiting from the floodwater in many ways. As the verse suggests, locals in the Vietnamese Mekong Delta make their living from the rich fishery resources, grow their flood-tolerant crops, and recently came up with many other creative income-generating activities. At the same time, recent socioeconomic developments and severe climate change impacts have fundamentally challenged, and partially changed, this harmonious way of living with water and the floods. Dikes and embankments have been built to control excessive floods under climate change, and also allow for secured three-crops-per-year rice production in the middle of the floodplain. From both scientific and management perspectives, the Mekong Delta is facing fundamental choices regarding how to configure its land and water systems in the face of economic growth, sustainability challenges and climate change impacts. We talked to researchers and stakeholders from the DUPC2 project on flood-based farming systems and how they could contribute to a more sustainable and resilient Mekong Delta of Vietnam.
     
  • Webinar blog: Navigating Marginality: Challenges for Remote Sensing Data

    Blog by Marloes Mul - Associate Professor IHE Delft as part of the first webinar 'Working with Smallholders and Women Farmers' of the WaterPIP Knowledge and Action Network webinar series 'Watering the Margins'.

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