The importance of wastewater reuse in urban and peri-urban agriculture has to be recognised and clear policy guidelines set to prevent negative impacts on human health and the environment. This involves stimulating research, knowledge sharing and awareness raising and encouraging a variety of stakeholders to take up their responsibilities.

As part of the Wastewater Agriculture and Sanitation for Poverty Alleviation (WASPA) project in Asia, IRC helped to facilitate four one-day sanitation and hygiene training sessions for 100 wastewater farmers in Rajshahi, Bangladesh. The farmers welcomed this opportunity to learn more about safety issues like the importance of handwashing, washing vegetables in clean water and safe sanitation. Local “learning and sharing teams” are working with government stakeholders to provide guidance on fertilizer use for safer production and better crop yields.

Targeted training sessions and informal meetings are organised to increase knowledge about safe reuse and to support behaviour change. In Wilgoda, in Kurunegala city in Sri Lanka, the project team supported women to form informal discussion groups, where they were able to identify common problems and knowledge gaps with respect to hygiene practices. The major complaint was the lack of latrines and drainage, as there is no sewage system.

Since the start of 2005 a wide range of data has been collected within the WASPA project, in order to develop a shared understanding of waste water farming and sanitation and to identify problems and areas for action. This includes information about institutional arrangements, stakeholders, wastewater use and quality, crop yields, pollution, knowledge gaps and health risks. Studies are under way to find cleaner methods of production and affordable solutions for reducing waste and managing wastewater. Joint visions and action plans for improving sanitation and wastewater management, and for mitigating health and environmental risks have been developed. These were fine-tuned based on the outcomes of interviews with stakeholder groups and based on the outcomes of the studies and a joint assessment of the project.

Documenting stories from the field

This is the third and final year of the project. Sharing and learning as highlighted in this article are part of the learning alliances approach, which has provided a platform for different stakeholders to come together. Stakeholders say that this has been the first opportunity for farmers and the municipal commissioner to sit together, discuss joint problems and develop collaborative action plans. The project teams have managed to raise stakeholder awareness and are slowly gaining commitment from stakeholders to act around WASPA issues. This is a slow process involving a lot of effort, many informal visits, phone calls and meetings to build trust and commitment and to clarify responsibilities and objectives: “We needed to learn who the relevant stakeholders were and build relationships with them. Explaining and understanding the Learning Alliance concept also takes time. This is not a familiar way of working in Bangladesh”, one of the participants said.

The teams have also been documenting changes in stakeholders’ awareness and understanding as well as challenges the teams have faced and lessons learned about working in a multi-stakeholder learning mode. In Bangladesh for example, the WASPA team has been writing ‘change stories’ to enable stakeholders to reflect on the project approach and the stories behind its successes and difficulties. As part of the CGIAR Knowledge Sharing in Research Project, the project team in Sri Lanka and a range of stakeholders were interviewed about their perspectives. These stories, interviews and other group reflection efforts are part of documenting the process so as to reach a better understanding about why and how a project follows a particular course and experiences its successes and failures.

For further information about the WASPA project, visit : http://www.iwmi.cgiar.org/waspa/WASPAprojinfo.htm

For information about the Knowledge Sharing in Research Project visit the website-- www.ks-cgiar.org

The project also has a blog which contains updates on activities, events and outputs and also poses interesting questions and initiates relevant discussions. It can be accessed at http://ictkm.wordpress.com/category/knowledge-sharing/

Wastewater Agriculture and Sanitation for Poverty Alleviation in Asia (WASPA Asia) Project, is funded by the European Commission under its Asia Pro Eco II Program and is being undertaken in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh by a consortium of partners including IWMI, IRC, SEI, NGO Forum and COSI Foundation.

Related stories:

Source Bulletin Nov 2005 Wastewater reuse West Africa: Mali and Burkina Faso case studies.

Source Bulletin, July 2005 Joint programme on Wastewater Agriculture and Sanitation for Poverty Alleviation (WASPA).

Tags: knowledge management, learning alliances, south asia, wastewater treatment