NEWS in brief
Around Africa
Swaziland
necessitates negotiating its water rights with other countries,
especially South Africa.
Swaziland secures US $63-million AfDB loan to finance
smallholder irrigation project
Tanzania
Swaziland has secured
a US $63 million (ZAR
2.01 billion) loan to
finance the second
phase of the Lower
Great Usuthu River near bend
Usuthu Smallholder
Irrigation Project (LUSIP II) in the southeastern part of
the country.
The LUSIP II, approved by the African Development Bank
Board on May 5, 2016, is a follow-up project to the LUSIP-I
which was completed in 2010. The project was a response
to the Government’s recognition that the natural resources
potential of the Lower Usuthu River Basin provided an
excellent opportunity for effective integration of poor
smallholder farmers into the commercial agriculture subsector.
The project aims to divert part of the peak flow of the
Usuthu River into a 155-million m³ capacity off-river storage
reservoir to be used to irrigate 11,500 ha (in two phases) of
downstream land to grow sugarcane.
Its overall objective is to increase household income,
enhance food security and improve access to social and
health infrastructure for the rural population by creating
the conditions for the transformation of subsistence level
smallholder farmers into small-scale commercial farmers.
The construction of the Main Conveyance System and the
Secondary System; On-Farm Infrastructure Development as
well as Project Management and Engineering Supervision,
are the four main components of the project.
It is expected to increase agricultural production, improve
infrastructure, environmental and natural resources
conservation and build the beneficiaries’ capacity in various
aspects of agricultural production, environment and natural
resources management and entrepreneurship.
In addition to other benefits, the project is expected to
significantly increase the food and nutritional security and
incomes of 2,259 rural households, 50% of the beneficiaries
are women. It will transform about 5,217 hectares of land
into diversified commercial cash and food cropping land.
The project will substantially address the agricultural
production constraints and development challenges faced
by the rural communities identified in the AfDB’s Swaziland
Country Strategy Paper, 2014. These include limited
irrigation infrastructure, which impedes the agricultural
sector’s growth and crop diversification, and sourcing water
from some major rivers located outside the country, which
6
Africa Water, Sanitation & Hygiene • May - June 2016
Scientists keen to change human waste to produce
fertilizer and charcoal
The Ifakara Health
Institute
(I.H.I)
in
collaboration
with
Bremen
Overseas
Research
Development
Association (BORDA)
in Tanzania, have come Field technicians during manual emptying of the
faecal sludge from the pit latrine
up with an innovative
human waste treatment and management technology that
finally makes human feces a risk-free resource for producing
fuel and fertilizers.
The brains behind this human feces treatment project are
Dr. Jacqueline Thomas and Mr. Emmanuel Mrimi from I.H.I
and Ms. Jutta Camargo from BORDA. It is an innovation
that has come at the right time, and badly needed by cities
like Dar es Salaam and Nairobi. In a big way, this project
promises a sanitation challenge solution Mathare valley and
Dar es Salaam residents can benefit from.
“With the significant reduction of pathogenic
microorganisms”, Mr. Mrimi reassures you, “the treated
human waste is safe. Users of these products do not put
their health on the line.” The innovative Decentralized
Wastewater Treatment Solutions (DEWATS) project is
treating human waste in three different areas in Dar es
Salaam. The project is supported by a grant from Human
Development Innovation Fund (HDIF) which is part of an
overall investment in innovation in Tanzania by UK Aid.
Uganda
NWSC Voted African Utility of the Year 2016
Kampala — National Water and
Sewerage Corporation has been voted
the African water utility for the year
2016 during the African Utility Week
held in Cape Town.
The Ugandan utility emerged overall winner for being
the first public agency from Africa to provide technical
assistance to sister utilities in Asia. This is the third year in a
row that NWSC has been voted African Utility of the year.
In declaring NWSC Uganda the winner of the 2016 edition,