India’s water stress is a recurrent thread to urban and rural areas across the country. Increased water demand, climate change vulnerability, and pollution of water quality from both the agricultural as well as the domestic and industrial sectors put pressure on the scarce resources the country can rely on. On top of that, water availability is determined by monsoons, with summer rains accounting for 75% of the annual rainfall for the major part of the country.
Water harvesting, hence, is an indispensable measure to complement groundwater supply and hence to mitigate risks of droughts, the flooding of low-lying areas, and the over usage of wells. Any type of intervention, be it based on technological advancement or traditional practices, requires strong participation and ownership from the beneficiaries to be sustainable. Being highly contextual and embedded in local institutions, this is easier said than done.
To explore this challenge, our second break-out session on the 22nd of March explores participatory programme design for water harvesting initiatives across a programming and planning framework of a project.
The workshop is structured as follows:
STEP 1: Participants start with a post-it dumping of existing practices. This will help them to explore similarities and learn new approaches, related to participatory programme design.
STEP 2: Smaller groups will then work on two processes of the planning framework and identify one main challenge related to community ownership, engagement, and participation.
STEP 3: As a final step, the groups will ideate concrete solutions to address the challenges. The groups will then internally vote for the top solution and build on the rationale and approach.
The solutions identified will contribute to the knowledge base of water harvesting and will be communicated across the sector. We invite you on behalf of the Ambuja Cement Foundation to join our one-day event on the 22nd of March in Ahmedabad.
Please find the Event Snapshot here.
We thank Divyang Waghela, Assistant Development Manager, Tata Trust, for being the knowledge lead of this session.
