Knowledge Management Portal

Based off of a participatory design and user-research process with women beekeepers in Uzbekistan and Ethiopia, AID-CSB will localize a beekeeping companion app and make it available to beekeepers. Incorporating traditional and local beekeeping knowledge and weather data, the app will be driven by data collected by beekeepers to support women, their decision-making for hive management, and provide a low-entry barrier economic activity. The women beekeepers will use the app to monitor and manage their hives by entering data on hive inspections and receiving helpful notifications on when to inspect the hive, weather, pests, diseases, and more.

Due to the high diversity in semi-arid drylands, land degradation cannot be addressed through uniform blanket soil and water conservation technologies (SWCT) and related policies. SWCTs are local level activities and practices that maintain or enhance the productive capacity of the land including soil, water and vegetation in areas prone to degradation. These also include practices that contribute to the prevention or reduction of soil erosion, compaction, salinity, etc. In order to be successful, it is required that investments in SWCT options are tailored to the specific and highly variable social and ecological contexts. At the same time, these investments are more profitable when they achieve concrete impact at a large scale. Well-designed, appropriate and structured scaling approaches are a prerequisite to take the impact of such SWCTs to scale. At the same time, appropriate indicators and tools for monitoring the impact of scaling investments are also needed to further enhance the value-for-money of such investments.

AGENT aims to transform genebanks from living archives into bio-digital resources centers, equipped to meet the needs of a changing world

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Wastewater remains an undervalued resource, all too often seen as a burden to be disposed of or a nuisance to be ignored. This perception needs to change to correctly reflect its value. Wastewater is a potentially affordable and sustainable source of water, energy, nutrients, organic matter and other useful by-products. Improved wastewater management, including the recovery and safe reuse of water and other key constituents, provides a great deal of opportunities. This is especially true in the context of a circular economy, whereby economic development is balanced with the protection of resources and environmental sustainability, and where a cleaner and more sustainable economy has a positive effect on water quality. Wastewater treatment and reuse has a great potential to contribute towards addressing the MENA water crisis. Funded by Sida and managed by IWMI, the ReWater MENA project focuses on the management of treated wastewater for agricultural use in Egypt, Jordan and Lebanon. The regional project also offers opportunities for south-to-south learning through experience learning under the banner of the National Learning Alliance. The project brings together relevant stakeholders including different ministries, international research centers, and experts in the field to seek sustainable and bankable solutions that increase safe reuse in agriculture. As part of the regional project, ICARDA contributes to Output One and 3 of the project portfolio in Egypt which include: development of a national baseline to support development of a national strategy for reuse; and the development of Local wastewater treatment and reuse (direct and indirect reuse) models. The plans will be developed through participatory methods that involve all key stakeholders including farmers, business ventures, government institutions, and other intended beneficiaries of the reuse models.

The contribution of the AFESD to the project titled, “Strengthening Innovation and Technology Adoption towards Sustainable Agricultural Productivity in Arab Countries” is designed around four components: Component 1: Innovations and scaling in rain-fed farming systems Component 2: Innovations and scaling forage technologies in rain fed areas Component 3: Innovations and scaling in irrigated farming systems Component 4: Innovations and scaling in agro-pastoral farming systems

A third phase of the project will build on the results achieved by verifying and fine-tuning recommended technology packages (wheat and food legume cultivars, agronomic and water management technologies), expanding the number of pilot sites to other agro-ecologies thereby out-scaling the technologies to more end-users, and strengthening the capacity of national research and extension systems to promote the technologies for wider adoption.

The project is the fifth phase of a whole series located in the Arabian Peninsula for the enhancement of agricultural production systems and the conservation of natural resources. This phase focuses on the diffusion of the developed technologies packages, to reduce the climate change effects on the environment and agricultural production affecting the livelihoods of local communities.