© DieselDemon

As you might have noticed, VIA Water is well under way. More and more projects have been contracted and more importantly, are starting to run. In our Community, updates have started to stream in, and our Proposal Writing Toolbox seems to come in handy for all those still doing hard labour on their proposals. Over the summer we have welcomed six new contracts and we are expecting another five quite soon. This means we expect to have committed over 50% of our funds by the end of September.

The variation in topics within the new contracts is rather high. Country-wise, four of the contracts are from Kenya and the other two have received wild cards: they are actually from the non VIA Water countries Senegal and Ethiopia. Half of the contracts has an African lead partner. Three of the new projects are directly aimed at business development with innovative products. In Senegal we support a trial to use recycled Poly Ethylene for drip irrigation tubes. In Ethiopia we support a local entrepreneur to start a business with a small sized faecal sludge extractor for difficult conditions (solid matter; narrow access). And in Kenya we support a women’s enterprise to pilot affordable machines for the production of re-usable and biodegradable hygiene pads.

In Kenya, two projects focus on the application of new participatory approaches in decision making. One is the Negotiated Approach to deal with the devastating practice of illegal sand mining for the construction industry. And the other one is the use of serious gaming as a tool for informed decision taking on water related issues. The last project in Kenya deals with a comparative study on geophysical exploration methods in three urban cases to improve the effectiveness and efficiency in water well drilling. Some of these projects are already displayed on our project page; some others have a backlog because of the summer period.

Check out our website for more information on these projects, and for the many project updates from our other projects.