Water and Society – Changing perceptions in a changing climate: A socio-economic perspective

 Authors : Dr. Soumi Roy Chowdhury, Prof. Deepak Singhania, Ms. Shradhda Jain

The growing population and the global shifts in economic activities have led to nearly six-fold increase in the water demand since 1900. Various estimates show that currently, the global water demand for all uses, is about 4,600 km3 per year, which is likely to increase by 20% to 30% in 2050([1]). Especially for agricultural purposes, the increase will be of 60% by 2025([2]). At the wake of this surge in water demand, the sources of water are continuously shrinking leading to an imbalance in the spatial and temporal distribution of water globally, nationally, as well as regionally.

Especially, countries with higher share of population, like India, that is a home to 17% of the world population with only 4% of the world’s fresh water, the average per capita water availability, is low enough to be categorized as water stressed country. NITI Aayog reports that the per-capita water availability will further reduce to 1341m3 by 2025 and 1140m3 by 2050 close to the water scarcity threshold of 1000 m3([3]).

Moreover, the water use patterns of India is startling. In 2014, India had the largest freshwater withdrawals, at over 760 billion m3 per year, of all the countries. This was followed by China at 600 billion m3 and USA at 480 billion m3. At this rate, if conservation measures are not put in place, an investment of Rs INR 20,00,000 crores might be needed to bridge the expected water supply gap by 2030([4]).

The following tables provide a glimpse of the sector-wise projected water demand in India against the water availability as per government estimates: Here we show two tables with projected water demand and supply in India.

 

[1] Burek, P. et al. Water Futures and Solution: Fast Track Initiative (Final Report). IIASA Working Paper (International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA), Laxenburg, Austria, 2016)

[2] Alexandratos, N. & Bruinsma, J. World Agriculture Towards 2030/2050: The 2012 Revision. ESA Working paper No. 12-03. Rome, Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO).

[3] Aayog, N. I. T. I. (2018). Composite water management index: A tool for water management.

[4] “Investments worth $291 bn needed to plug water demand-supply gap in India: Study”, ASSOCHAM India, accessed May 6, 2019, http://assocham.org/newsdetail.php?id=6357.

Integration of local communities in water management dialogues

Given the above-mentioned imbalance between water supply and demand, management of water resources such that it caters to the present and future generations become important. In that aspect, the Government of India has acknowledged the need for water management in a scientific way.

Missions like Jal Shakti Abhiyaan across 256 districts and 1592 water stressed blocks in India campaigned for water conservation interventions – such as rainwater harvesting, renovation of traditional and other water bodies/tanks, reuse, bore well recharge structures, watershed development and intensive afforestation.

The success of these efforts lie in their relevance and uptake at the local and individual levels of communities. Also, the sustainability of these effects not only rests with their adoption among the end users but in their conviction about the looming water scarcity and the need to uptake water management practices. In this context, it has become even more important to integrate local communities in dialogues pertaining to water scarcity.

With the diverse geographical spread of India, ideally water management must be case specific. One umbrella-solution might not fit the requirements of the heterogeneous terrains.  Therefore, the importance of focusing into the specific water needs and available resources of a community cannot be ignored.  Bottom-up approach through participatory planning needs collaborations with the communities living in these areas. This will in turn instil a sense of ownership among them and will make them accountable for the use and management of these practices.

Ensuring accountability such that users understand the importance of these conservation efforts needs behavioural changes. This is the most fundamental requirement that is likely to hold together all the planning and policy decisions. Mindfulness in groundwater extraction as per the needs, adhering to policy guidelines, ensuring timely maintenance of the conservation structures will ensure sustainability of these initiatives. Therefore, capacity building and spreading of awareness are fundamental to bring about behavioural changes.

Sustainable solutions to water management

Different innovation practices and technologies aiming for sustainable water management solutions have gained prominence as a response to the water scarcity. For instance, technologies like faucet, aerators, flush diverters have been introduced to address the water usage patterns in domestic and industrial purposes. Micro irrigation, crop rotations, plantation of seasonal crops, and bio manures help in the preservation of the soil moisture which ultimately leads to curbs in the water demand.

On the other hand, hard constructions, extinction of water bodies, soil erosions have made it difficult for the infiltration of rainwater into the aquifers. Especially in cases of low rainfall areas, arid and semi-arid climatic conditions, the groundwater is even more depleted. Sustainable solutions like rainwater harvesting in these cases can be helpful in addressing the supply side challenges – they help in diverting the runoff of water towards the aquifer.

Some such supply side interventions can be seen through the flagship programs of the State governments like Sujalam Sufalam Yojana in Gujarat, Jalyukt Shivar Abhiyan in Maharashtra, and Pani Bachao Pani Kamao in Punjab among others.  Similarly, NGOs, academic research institutions and some foreign institutions are pulling together resources and like-minded people to drive participatory irrigation management programmes and decentralized water management initiatives. To give some examples, from the Kutch area in Gujarat, one can follow the works being undertaken by the NGOs like ACT, WOTR, SRIJAN, SANKALPA with support from funding agencies such as WIN, Aziz Premji Foundation and Arghyam.

The farmers of Kutch region are affected by low rainfall and salinity of water due to coastal and low-lying areas. Both factors affect the quality of water due to high salt concentration which makes it difficult for both agricultural use and impacts livelihood. To address this challenge, farmers have created a recharge pit – which is used to recharge the dry borewell. Areas near the dry borewell has been evaluated to divert the flow of rainwater towards it. A pit is constructed and filled with rocks and sand which also helps in the purification of water. This pit is connected to a borewell through a PVC pipe. A recharge well serving the same purpose is also dug into these areas to the depth of the aquifer.

These interventions not only increase the water level but also improve the quality of the water by decreasing the TDS level. Most importantly, rainwater collected in these pits and wells gets stored in the aquifer which in overall keeps recharging the aquifer below. So not just the individual farmer, but farmers within the perimeter of 500 metres gets benefited from such interventions due to increase in water availability in the aquifers. The future of these interventions lies in sustainability where both private needs of the farmers and the societal needs are met.

As one farmer from Khambhaliya, Kutch says that:

“We are benefited by these interventions . Farmers were not interested in agriculture due to drought and quality of water and were looking for labor work. But now with increased water availability, I earn more from my field. The produce has increased. Can you see this bright green color of leaves, it was yellow 15 years ago. This is possible due to artificial recharge well”.

As the looming challenge of water scarcity is already upon us, a holistic sustainable and innovative approach to water management cannot leave behind the involvement of the local communities.

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Deepak Singhania and Shradhda Jain are associated with IIT Gandhinagar, while Soumi Roy Chowdhury is associated with Janaagraha Centre for Citizenship and Democracy. Views expressed are the author’s own

https://www.linkedin.com/in/deepak-singhania-a055a512/?originalSubdomain=in

https://www.linkedin.com/in/shradhda-jain-433b86129/?originalSubdomain=in

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WIN Nutri-preneur Communications suite development project

 

Team WinFoundation Dec 24, 2023  0 Comment  Water Conservation

Author – Students of Institute of Design, Nirma University, with guidance from Prof. Mona Gosai.

Branding and Brand communication is a course taught at the Institute of Design, Nirma University in Semester VI of Communication Design. The course explores Brand Building and teaches communication theories for strategic communication in the form of campaigns, case studies and advertisements.

Under this course, our group of 13 students of Batch 2020-24, got an opportunity to work on a project with WIN Foundation and social organization SAATH and the women ‘nutri-preneurs’ to design the branding and communication material for their home-made nutritious snacks. To understand the clients and their requirements better, we visited one of the project locations at Vasna, Ahmedabad, where we interacted with project coordinators and a few women ‘nutri-preneurs’. From the initial interaction we got an idea that their main aim is to provide community children with homemade nutritious snacks instead of junk snacks like wafers, biscuits, Kurkure etc. by which are harmful for their health, but children get easily influenced  to eat them.

According to the requirements indicated and discussions , the deliverables of the project were narrowed down as below:

1. Design of Packaging and Posters  of the nutritive products – keeping children as the primary target audience
2. Social Media posts – to create awareness in society
3. Short animated video advertisement, highlighting the importance of consuming nutritious food which is engaging for children

To achieve the deliverables, 3 groups were made for focused work and better outcomes. To understand the eating habits, behaviour and what attracts the children, we visited the ‘Balghar’-creche, located in Narol Gam, Ahmedabad where we interacted with preschool children, their mothers, and teachers. From the visit we got some idea on how we should start with the campaign and promotional materials. After discussions, we came up with a Mascot named Tesu, which was going to be the face of the visuals and for the labels – a cartoon character representing the product, e.g. If nachos is a product then on a label nachos is showed with a happy face which may attract children to buy the products. The community women were very clear with their vision and what they wanted the children to see. This helped us to achieve the relevant results.

Saath and WIN Foundation were very helpful with the whole process and wanted the students to design the collaterals, the way the community women envisioned. This synergy boosted the students’ spirit and helped them stay on the same page as the women. Brainstorming and discussing different ideas with each other helped us a lot with the design outcomes. Everyone supported and helped each other. Working in a team was the greatest strength in completing this project.

Before our final submission we had to present our work to our Professors, WIN and SAATH team and the ‘nutri-preneurs’. We got genuine feedback from everyone. The feedback of the Nutri-preneurs was important for us as they were the ones to use the final material. They were so clear with what they required and what would be appealing and attractive for the children. We had a ‘good-feel’ working for the community women and got many new ideas from them.

The final collaterals designed were packaging label designs, standees, Tesu female and male mascots, social media posts, an animated video in Gujarati and Hindi and a radio jingle. All of this was done over a span of 3 weeks. At the end of the project our learning and understanding of various aspects of branding, strategies and brand campaigns were clear and we also understood the value of teamwork and co-design to enhance a ‘real-life’ brief.

Animated Video link

Audio Jingle Link

 

Micro-entrepreneurship for Sustainable Social Impact

 Author – WIN Foundation

Introduction:

Tens of billions of dollars as well as human resources have been spent over last several decades to reduce poverty, solve critical problems in health, water, and improve quality of life. However, the progress has been far less than desired.

In the book, “The Prosperity Paradox”, the late Harvard Professor Clayton Christensen, the guru of disruptive innovation, showed, along with his co-authors, how solutions creating local market at bottom of the pyramid, have been more effective in moving the needle faster and more efficiently towards social goals in society and nations, as compared to aid handouts and subsidies. Successes like MPaisa in Kenya, Grameen Bank in Bangladesh and several microfinance initiatives in India show ample evidence, as do failures of many large aid programs in bringing about sustainable change.

Even more important, for quality of life, is the micro-entrepreneurship at grassroots catering to public / social goods and services for communities, particularly public services like health, water, energy, education and so on. The pre-colonial Indian economy was estimated at 15-20% of world’s GDP. While the goods produced, like textiles, ships, steel, by Indian entrepreneurs were world renowned, local services for health, water structures, basic education, evolved over centuries, and provided by locally skilled “experts”, were the bedrock of rural life and economic prosperity. In each domain, expertise was carried over generations within families, providing high quality and reliable services, over centuries, thus providing livelihoods and high quality of services to villagers.

E.g. Our water structures like “Vavs” in Gujarat, the ancient water storage structures in Dholavira in the Harrapan times, show high precision and quality structures.

Today, India has achieved substantial growth. However, our rural and tribal areas suffer not just from lack of income and employment, but poor civic services in critical areas of health, water, energy etc., leading to poor quality of life. Several projects demonstrate high potential of micro-entrepreneurship models in each of these domains for sustainable development.

WIN Foundation supports innovations for sustainable social impact in its domains of (i) water and sanitation and (ii) mother and child health. It brings  innovative products and approaches, by bringing multiple stakeholders together, including NGOs, premier institutions, startups, and other innovation ecosystem players.

This is combined  with empowerment and skilling of the local communities. Local talented young men and women are trained in skills, technology and organizing work and projects, to carry out interventions for impact, creating livelihoods and improving social / public services and quality of life.

E.g. (i) In Water and Sanitation, water recharge structures, roof rain water harvesting systems, agriculture and water data collection and analysis etc. Microentrepreneurship models are being implemented to enable the trained local youth to achieve dignified career, respect and sustainability. (ii) Similarly in health, WIN Foundation supports several projects involving development of women micro-entrepreneurs for nutritious food products, to market the products along with a message of healthy diet among communities.

Challenges for microentrepreneurship:

If the potential for such microentrepreneurship for sustainable impact is known, then what are the challenges in scaling up this approach across the country? Based on the experience in our projects, we share the following, with few suggestions to overcome them:

1. i) Self-confidence and Trust: Communities need to build self-confidence in themselves, and trust with their partners, to adopt the path of self reliance for their public needs like water and health, as against 100% reliance on the government for all such services. The typically “free” or “low cost” “government schemes/solutions, are often inadequate, inconsistent, or of poor quality, imposing a high cost on the community. E.g. Poor water bodies management results in poor water quality, shortages in summer, in turn resulting in health problems. Fortunately, many NGOs have worked closely with communities to build such trust. Further, NGO staff has to be oriented to understand the need to carry the message of skilling, microentrepreneurship as a solution, as against the standard charity activities or government schemes and freebies as the solution. Even when the government provides funds or basic infrastructure, local microentrepreneurship can help maintain such infrastructure and related services, to get maximum out of it. The community has to be convinced to get involved, take ownership, and support their own young men and women to get skills and provide high quality and reliable services as microentrepreneurs.
2. ii) Localised Customer-focused Solutions:

Microentrepreneurs have to develop customized solutions to meet dynamic local customer needs. This requires (i) technical skilling in production of goods or provision of services, and (ii) understanding marketing concepts, to understand varying customer needs and adapt offerings, with effective marketing. This also requires bringing out the innate leadership skills of the microentrepreneurs, giving them confidence in their abilities, and encouraging them to experiment and improvise along their journey. Often, well meaning NGOs train microentrepreneurs to only produce goods, with little or no marketing and leadership training. This restricts microentrepreneurs from thinking further about understanding customer needs and long term growth. WIN engages microentrepreneurship training experts to train and handhold microentrepreneurs, with support of NGO staff, over 1-3 years. The NGO and microentrepreneurship expert also help evolve new viable business models, through experimentation.

iii) Understand and adopt technologies, processes, and update knowledge regularly to meet customer and community needs:

1. Products and services: Even the rural population is exposed to modern products, and aspires to benefit from such products. Microentrepreneurs have to be trained to scan and adopt new technologies and products from time to time. Fortunately, a lot of affordable technologies are being developed by startups and companies, available for use by local microentrepreneurs to offer better services. E.g. Field usable Soil moisture, soil testing, water testing equipment at low cost, allow the local micro-entrepreneurs to offer services to support smart farming even to marginal farmers. WIN Foundations, through multi-stakeholder collaboration, involving NGOs, startups, institutions, etc. has helped bring affordable state of the art products, bringing products from over 10 startups to the communities.
2. E-business: to help microentrepreneurs become efficient and widen market reach. Here too, modern IT and Telecom solutions are available at very low cost or no cost. This requires identification of such affordable means and then training microentrepreneurs to implement them. This too requires bringing expert trainers and NGOs together. Eg. WIN Foundation recently carried out a multi-partner, multi-location month-long whatsapp for business training for around 35 microentrepreneurs, predominantly women, who implemented their online pages and catalogues right during the training and started generating businesses.
3. Continued learning: We need to build a learning attitude among the microentrepreneurs for their continued learning and update, and support them with learning opportunities, including self learning, online learning etc. E.g. WIN Foundation supports learning through its online skillingtoWIN.org platform.
4. iv) Funding support: Microentrepreneurs require funding support, just like that available in startup world, over a period of time, alongwith development of their own financial expertise to enable them to move towards financial self reliance. This requires creation of seed funds, soft loans, cooperative credit society structures, etc., which provide support and also generate financial accountability. There are several priority sector lending schemes also available for small businesses including those by women.
5. v) Scaling and Replication: While many pilots have shown excellent results, scaling and replicating solutions across whole districts, state, country remain the biggest challenge. Typical solutions tried for scale-up are skilling at mass scale, financial support schemes by government However, these have had limited success and often lose momentum, as they often face new unforeseen problems in new locations or new situations. A key requirement, missed out by most scaling efforts, is that of local leadership. Success in pilots invariably involved local leadership displayed by experts, local NGO staff, few local community leaders etc, which is critical to overcome unforeseen hurdles faced along the way. Scaling efforts miss out on this leadership aspect almost totally, leading to lack of success in scaling up. Hence, to complement the massification of skilling, we also need to create a simultaneous system to identify leadership potential at local levels, and then empower the local leaders to evolve, through practice, local solutions, and solve local problems and hurdles, while replicating successful models from elsewhere. Such local leaders typically also help many other microentrepreneurs around them, thus bringing true multiplier effect. WIN Foundation is engaged with its NGO partners to brainstorm and implement such leadership development process, and is keen to explore more stakeholder relationships for this.

Summary of WIN Foundation projects which support microentrepreneurship:

1. Water Conservation, where local youth, men and women, are trained as Bhujal Janjkars, and lead interventions by preparing water security plans and help implement water recharge structures, smart farming practices using affordable equipment and solutions, women group formation and practices like kitchen gardens etc. Thus these Bhujal Jankar act  as change agents, and bring sustainable improvement in quality of life at village level.
2. Mother and Child Nutrition, where women microentrepreneurs are trained for producing and selling nutritious food products to community, along with support for central kitchen, seed funds, community events etc. These women microentrepreneurs take the message of nutrition to mothers and others in communities, and market healthy food products, affordable to the community and finally make a positive impact to tackle malnutrition.
3. Horizontal initiatives across domains:
   1. Whatsapp for Business training for grassroots micro entrepreneurs, from multiple domains – to enable them to tap into e-commerce even with their limited education.
   2. Online skilling platform – skillingtoWIN.org, enabling expansion of skilling.

Impact:

• 25+ of Bhujal Jankars
• 40+ Number of Women microentrepreneurs for food
• 35+ Number of microentrepreneurs who implemented e-business and started getting sales through e-business channel

Future goals:

• Support microentrepreneurs reach stability and maturity, and put them on growth path with greater customer service and financial profitability
• Identify leaders among above groups and motivate them to act as coaches for more microentrepreneurs
• Scale and replicate in other locations – through training and local leadership development
• Build multi-stakeholder system to support microentrepreneurs.

WIN Foundation would love to engage with other organizations for supporting grassroot microentrepreneurship. If interested, write to us at info@winfoundations.org.

Technological Solutions in Sanitation

 Author – WIN Foundation

WIN Foundation’s vision is to support innovations for sustainable social impact in

(i) water and sanitation and

(ii) mother and child health.

In this, sanitation is a critical link connecting  water supply, waste management and health.

Lack of proper public sanitation infrastructure leads to:

1. Contamination and pollution in Water sources like lakes, wells, rivers, groundwater aquifers
2. Poor drainage, in turn leading to stagnant water on ground, blocked / overflowing drainage, leading to water borne diseases, particularly in monsoon.
3. Unhealthy work conditions for sanitation workers, particularly for those involved in cleaning septic tanks, sewage lines etc.

In addition to above, poor home sanitation like lack of toilets or unclean or broken  toilets in poor or lower middle class communities lead to lack of personal hygiene and diseases. This affects women and children even more.

WIN Foundation projects improve sanitation directly or indirectly. We have supported innovations like disabled friendly toilet attachments, water saving toilet technologies and robotic septic tank cleaning systems.

i) Disabled friendly toilet attachment improves access to toilets for the vast population with physical disabilities, thus increasing their usage. WIN Foundation supported Oston Technology in initial stage trials in field. Now these products are being adopted in greater numbers.

 

 

 

 

ii) Water saving in flush toilets using hyperboloid technology developed by students from PSG College of Technology, Coimbatore, was the 1st prize award winner in the national Vishwakarma Innovation competition, jointly organized by Maker Bhavan Foundation and WIN Foundation. Toilet flushing requires a lot of water and this innovation can cut it down by about 70%.

 

iii) Septic Tank cleaning robotic system tackles the vicious problem of  unhealthy, dangerous and undignified practice of manual cleaning of septic tanks. It also enables sanitation workers an avenue for sustainable microentrepreneurship. Our continuing support to Solinas, the startup manufacturing septic tank cleaning robotic system, originally developed at IIT Madras, aims at greater adoption of this technology by sanitation workers.

 

Our water conservation projects involving ground water recharge and roof rainwater harvesting, while primarily aimed at conserving water, also provides an indirect but significant benefit of reducing water stagnation on ground, thereby reducing the clogging and overflow of storm water drains. WIN Foundation supports water conservation through participatory approach, which involves training and empowering village youth to implement water security projects in their villages. This ensures greater sustainability and knowledge based livelihoods.

WIN Foundation continues to look to support adoption of more innovations at grass root levels, through a multi-stakeholder approach involving institutions, startups, NGOs and other ecosystems players