The First Project Selected for Grant Support under RAN Resilience Innovation Acceleration Program (RIAP), in the Horn of Africa Resilience Innovation Lab
Project: Innovative Rainwater Harvesting (RWH) Technologies to Improve Access to Safe
Water in Borana Zone, Ethiopia
Team Leader: Alemayehu Haddis (PhD), Jimma University
Other Team Members: Esayas Alemayehu (PhD), Jimma University, and Abdulkadir Beyan
(M.Sc.), Bule Hora University
The purpose of this project is to incubate rainwater harvesting technologies in selected pastoralist communities in Borana Zone with adaptation to local environmental and hydro-climatic conditions. These rainwater harvesting technologies were previously tested in agrarian communities located in Jimma Zone. The technologies are innovative in their approach to provide safe and adequate water to pastoralists by emphasizing on prevention of evaporation and percolation, improvement of water quality, as well as protection of public health. These new technologies are integrated with environmental rehabilitation and climate resilience measures. Once incubated, tested and proved successful, the technologies will have a chance to be further developed and sustained by current initiatives in the region for scaling, teaching and demonstration through which the primary beneficiaries will be pastoralists in Borana Zone. These vital technologies can be widely diffused to tackle the scarcity of safe water supply in similar communities in the sub-region.