Dear Manfred,
Thank you for your post about the work under RUNRES programme (also highlighted at Rural-21) in African countries (circular economy ….). The innovations to transform human waste, banana by prodtcs, etc into useful products is highly appreciated. … Such interventions contributes greately to sustainable development, …. As you highlighted clearly, the design and implementation also require participatory approaches (Participatory Rural Appraisals….), which still is relatively new in many development programmes.
The SNV and Hivos supported Africa Biogas Partnership Programme (ABPP) tried to implement Bio-gas programmes in some East African countries, to transform animal and human waste into production of domestic bio-gas for household and enterprise energy use, thus contributing to reducing de-forestation, saving women’s labour and time, etc) …. The bye-product (bio-slury’’) could also be used as ‘’organic’’ fertilizer input (replacing the high-cost, imported ‘’chemical’’ fertilizer), which can be used to promote food-crop production in urban-agriculture. … Yet adoption of the technology (both by households and enterprises) was so slow after implementation for more than ten years – despite the 40% subsidy by governments and donors, and availability of easier access to credit from financial institutions …..
Our evaluation for SNV (2015) (attached) revealed that this was mainly because no serious efforts was made to make the promotion of the programme ‘’participatory’’. In particular, no serious effort was made on demand creation (as proposed under the IDS-COWASH) especially among households, which for long are used to traditional fule use (typically forest products, which often are freely available….). Also coordination of relevant partners and stakeholders, including those from the public sector, private sector, NGOs, households, etc was so challenging.
I believe this could help facilitate exchange of ideas going forward….
Thanks and Regards
Getaneh
Mr. Getaneh Gobezie