emerging technology

Article

Securing Water for Food – Global Waters In Focus

This Global Waters In Focus looks at the Securing Water for Food (SWFF) Grand Challenge for Development. Since 2013, USAID has partnered with the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the South Africa Department of Science and Technology, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands to develop science and technology solutions that allow farmers to produce more food with less water through the SWFF Grand Challenge for Development.

News Link

Pastoralists Turn to Apps to Find Grazing Fields

From the ashes of this failed project and in partnership with USAID, Google and iHub, PCI then launched AfriScout, a mobile phone application that displays current water points, pasture, vegetation, areas prone to diseases, areas where herders are likely to encounter wildlife or hostile conditions, and other circumstances that pastoralists need to know about before migrating.

Toolkit

Water Security Implementation – SWP Toolkit #5

Water Security Implementation is the fifth in a series of six toolkits from the Sustainable Water Partnership (SWP). It provides a brief introduction to water security, as well as a detailed walkthrough of SWP’s five-step Water Security Improvement (WSI) process. The success of that process depends on the implementation of activities or measures defined through collaborative planning and decision-making with the purpose of addressing and mitigating priority water risks now and in the future.

Blog

Connecting Innovators to the Marketplace

USAID’s Global Development Lab hosted an Innovation Marketplace at the 2017 Global Innovation Week in Washington, D.C., September 28 and 29. This is one of those truly inspiring events where creative and entrepreneurial minds are being applied to some of the world’s most intractable problems.

Fact Sheet

WASHPaLs: Providing Convenient Access to Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Expertise

The Water, Sanitation, and Hygiene Partnerships and Learning for Sustainability (WASHPaLS) project is a five-year (2016–2021) Task Order working to improve water supply, sanitation and hygiene (WASH) programming by identifying, sharing, and guiding the use of best practices for the delivery of WASH services and sustained behavior change. Through operational research, small grants, and technical assistance, the project works with USAID, governments, key sector donors and implementers to fill evidence gaps related to rural sanitation and behavior change.

Activity

Middle East Bureau Technical Services Monitoring Agriculture and Water Resources Development

MAWRED's activity objective was to support regional policy makers in current and future water and agriculture resource planning. NASA worked closely with ICBA as a regional institution, providing tools and training to ICBA’s staff on the use of NASA’s technologies. In return, ICBA provided similar trainings and hands-on capacity building to a range of regional organizations within the participating countries and institutions, building on the working partnership between USAID, NASA and the World Bank, which was established in 2008.

Evaluation

Middle East and North Africa Water Center Network (MENA WCN) Assessment and Design

The Middle East and North Africa Water Center Network (MENA WCN) will link technical institutions across the region to work together and with outside counterpart institutions on critical water challenges. The Network will strive to foster partnerships; build and exchange regional science and technology capacity to improve water resources planning and management; and develop and disseminate policy tools and technical and management interventions that expand water supply, manage demand, and dramatically increase its efficient and productive use.

Evaluation

Agribusiness Market and Support Activity - Final Evaluation

The objective of the AMARTA project was to improve the quality and quantity of commodities produced within selected value chains and establish strong and transparent linkage between producers and other stakeholders, resulting in enhanced knowledge, greater access to appropriate technology, improved access to markets and improved incomes.

Webinar

A Tool for Monitoring the Scaling Up of Water and Sanitation Technologies (TAF: Technology Applicability Framework)

The topics of the RWSN Mini Webinar Series 2016 include the Human Right to Water and Sanitation, Self-Supply, Sustainability of Services and the Technology Applicability Framework. The format includes 1-2 presentation from a presenter, comments from one or several discussants, and a Question & Answer session where all participants are invited to ask questions or make comments. This webinar, recorded on November 16, 2016, focuses on a tool called TAF (Technology Applicability Framework) and it's used for screening, evaluating and scaling up water and sanitation technologies.

Report

The Digitisation of Sanitation

2.4 Billion people still lack access to an improved source of sanitation, yet up to 95% of this population is covered by mobile networks and unique subscriber market penetration is above 63%, i.e. more than 4.7 Billion people have at least one mobile phone number. With more than 411 Million registered mobile money accounts, mobile is also increasingly changing the landscape of financial inclusion.