Project Detail

Water-Energy-Food Nexus for Adaptation and Mitigation of Climate Change Towards Sustainable Food Security, Efficient Use of Resources and Improved Livelihoods from Dikabeya Irrigation Scheme

Climate change and variability exacerbate the already limited availability of water resources in Botswana. These undesirable phenomena present significant challenges to the rural communities whose livelihoods are highly reliant on agricultural activities such as irrigated crop production. About 70% of rural households derive their livelihoods from agriculture through subsistence farming (Ministry of Agricultural Development and Food Security, 2012). These communities are therefore a significant constituent of those that are most vulnerable to climate change and variability related disasters. Amongst these bigger communities are the smallholder irrigation farmers whose livelihoods should benefit from the proposed project. The current proposal focuses on climate change adaptation and mitigation initiatives that would improve operation, water use, energy efficiencies and ultimately increased production in Dikabeya irrigation scheme. Dikabeya project is located about 12 km northeast of Palapye and 25 km southwest of Topisi along the Palapye-Francistown highway (Department of Crop Production and Forestry, 2002). Water is pumped from Dikabeya dam using a single electric-powered pump with one backup pump. The water is then conveyed and stored in a 1,000 m3 open concrete tank near the irrigated land. From the storage tank, water is channeled through canals to sumps from which irrigation activities draw water. Generally, the current components of the Dikabeya irrigation scheme are evidently disintegrated and dilapidated, which clearly signifies water use inefficiencies in the whole system. This situation is more undesirable for a water-stressed country that is significantly affected by the effects of climate change. Waste of water resources in a pump-based water supply / distribution system is directly linked to inefficiency of energy used for pumping, which by extension greatly reduce productivity and have high amount of emissions. This project will incorporate a nexus approach to Water-Energy-Food security thereby improving water productivity and profitability of crop production using low carbon renewable energy. Sustainable interventions will target the operation of the system; pumping and energy use, water conveyance to the storage tank and canals, field irrigation and climate-smart agroecology practice. This holistic approach would synchronize three sectors / subsectors (water, energy and crop production) to reduce trade-offs and maximize synergies where possible, which would also enhance policy coherence. With lack of a systematic operation at Dikabeya irrigation scheme, the goal of this project is to develop decision support approaches and implement climate-smart interventions. The outcomes should be realized through needs-based research to benefit both the smallholder irrigation farmers and the Ministry of Agricultural Development and Food Security.

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Project Snapshot

Grantee:

Botswana Institute for Technology Research and Innovation

Country:

Botswana

Area Of Work:

Climate Change Mitigation

Operational Phase:

OP6 - Y5 (Jul 19-Jun 20)

Grant Amount:

US$ 50,000.00

Co-Financing Cash:

US$ 52,689.38

Co-Financing in-Kind:

US$ 39,264.90

Project Number:

BOT/SGP/OP6/Y5/CORE/CC/2020/08

Start Date:

8/2020

End Date:

6/2023

Status:

Satisfactorily Completed

Project Characteristics and Results

Gender Focus

All the relevant stakeholders will be engaged in the project and the levels of engagements will depend on the stages of development. Irrigation farmers, i.e., both men and women would be particularly empowered to make some decisions, which should strengthen their sense of ownership in the project. In this project, well-organized farmer associations would handle the construction, water allocation and maintenance issues to ensure efficiency and sustainability of the small-scale irrigation scheme.

Inovative Financial Mechanisms

In this project area, robust communication strategy with a combination of knowledge and information products on climate change mitigation and adaptation will be developed to reach targeted audiences such as the general communities, NGOs, scientific community, decision makers at different levels as well as the private sector. Therefore, in this manner, creating, sharing, using, introducing retention mechanisms and managing knowledge would make the best use of knowledge and information generated from the project.

Promoting Public Awareness of Global Environment

The communication strategy adopted in the project would include identification and participation of stakeholders to promote continuity beyond the project lifespan. Engagement and understanding of target groups will be critical and the contents of this project proposal will be shared with relevant agricultural managers and extension officers. The communication strategy would also include assessment of the communication context and appropriately share the project goal so that the stakeholders would be aware of the project. In this regard, stakeholders would be able to incorporate the project activities in their plans. Hence, consultation at project inception, collaboration during implementation, and results dissemination will be followed as highlighted in project activities. The project stakeholder engagement strategies will basically include public information, consultation and public deliberations. The communication strategy will also select and use appropriate communication products, media and activities. Information, education and communication materials would be used for provision of the climate change phenomenon and adaptation strategies. Also important is the strategy that identifies relevant organizations and solicit collaborations with them.

Policy Impact

The project is intended to inform and enhance relevant policies. The government, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), private sector, civil society and development agents would use research evidence to inform decisions. Policy makers and investors will be able to use local and contextualized evidence to inform adaptation policies such as Drought Management Strategy, Rural Development, Climate Change Response and agricultural policies. More specifically, the project would also guide sectorial interventions that employ accounting and valuation tools to support water management decision systems and integrating climate change response measures in the water planning process in irrigation. Botswana policy on climate change response (draft) urges the government to commit to adopting water management strategies that would achieve sustainable water conservation and use efficiency. The proposed project would also support the required independent renewable energy production in Botswana (Ministry of Minerals, Energy and Water Resources, 2012b). In addition, the SADC Regional Agricultural Policy prioritizes availability of energy for irrigation. This project would support systematic selection of strategies and technologies so that growth limiting factors such as land, water and energy can be addressed in ways that bring efficiencies, decent jobs and environmental sustainability (Ministry of Agricultural Development and Food Security, 2012). In summary, the study outputs will be used to guide and inform policy makers in the assessment, adoption and implementation of economically sound climate adaptation strategies for the most vulnerable communities to cope with climate change.

Emphasis on Sustainable Livelihoods

The revamped Dikabeya irrigation scheme will generally create employment. With optimal use of the currently unallocated but serviced irrigable land, the community around the Dikabeya dam will have an opportunity to diversify their agricultural practice. Those who would be allocated land for irrigation will be able to employ some of those who may have been unfortunate. Alternatively, with enhanced water security, the surrounding population that practices traditional farming will benefit by utilizing the available water for sustainable rearing of livestock. In addition to the predominant agricultural activities in the area (i.e. rearing of livestock and arable agriculture), sustainable management of Dikabeya irrigation scheme would present the opportunity to enhance fishery and income generated by recreational activities (e.g. picnic and photoshoot).

Significant Participation of Indigenous Peoples

This project is already targeting the rural community by virtue of its location, where livelihoods depend on agriculture for sustenance. The poor population in the rural areas are vulnerable to climate change, which worsens poverty. Their involvement in irrigation farming will lessen vulnerability of their livelihoods. Women will be encouraged to lead farmer associations. Livelihood analyses will be carried out to establish the livelihoods of women who may be disadvantaged by the cattle-post background of the location of the Dikabeya irrigation system. Gender disintegrated data would be collected and analyzed separately on male and female basis. Collection of sex disintegrated data would facilitate the comprehension of crop production in the irrigation scheme and influence development of better policies and programs. Rural communities will review and use empirical evidence to advocate for policies that are responsive to their priorities and challenges.

Notable Community Participation

With general lack of employment, the project would present an opportunity to improve the livelihoods of the unemployed youth and the san community in the locality of the Dikabeya dam who might be interested in crop production. This project also present secondary benefits such as fishery, watering of livestock and recreational activities. The project beneficiaries will be trained to acquire skills in crop production and benefits from the project in terms of income throughout the year as opposed to the traditional seasonal arable agriculture. Therefore, the irrigation scheme that supplements unreliable agriculturally based income, could provide continuous employment and reduce the ever-increasing number of unemployment in the area. Further involvement would include attachment positions and research opportunities for tertiary students in the country. According to the MoA officer who was interviewed by BITRI researchers, there is already a disabled person who has been allocated a plot in the Dikabeya irrigation scheme. More of these opportunities will be afforded to other disabled people with the currently available irrigable land.

Capacity - Building Component

With the introduction of new technology solutions in the irrigation scheme, training events will be designed and conducted to educate the agricultural extension officers as they are the key players in implementing and sustaining the technology that will be introduced. Irrigation farmers will also be empowered with state-of-the-art climate smart agriculture that advocates for sustainable agricultural production. Further training will include other related skills such as financial management, handling of crops/produce and marketing. These tasks will be achieved by conducting workshops, classroom training and farm peer demonstration/benchmarking through the assistance of active agricultural extension workers who have frequent contacts with irrigation farmers. In addition, knowledge dissemination and community engagement such as farmer-to-farmer exchanges reaching outside the Dikabeya locality will encourage more technology uptake and wide-scale adoption. Further capacity needs will be captured in due course using a questionnaire which has already been developed.

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