The SMART Centres in Zambia and Malawi regularly publish a newsletter with updates and exiting developments. Their most recent newsletters can be accessed through the links below:
Jacana SMART Centre – Zambia: Newsletter November
CCAP SMART Centre – Malawi: Newsletter November
We have updated the poster which was presented at RWSN 2016, presenting 6 practical ideas to SDG6 and related SDGs 1 (Poverty), 2 (Food), 3 (Health) and 8 (Youth Employment).
The updated poster can be accessed through the resources page.
The only way to provide water for all, to a growing population in developing countries, is to capacitate the same people to solve that problem. EMAS and SMART Centres have been training and guiding small-scale entrepreneurs in developing countries for many years. Trained entrepreneurs now supply affordable water technologies to communities and households in over 20 countries serving more than 2 million people.
EMAS and SMARTechnologies are complimentary and the organisations share the same philosophy towards sustainable development. Our mutual goal is to establish supply chains of Market-based, Affordable and Replicable technologies that are also fit for households (Self-supply). By joining forces SMART Centres and EMAS will increase the number of small water enterprises, make them more robust and offer a larger variety of technologies and services to their customers.
“We believe that investing in capacity building creates the conditions for sustainable rural water supply.“
Interested ? Then contact us at:
info@smartcentregroup.com or info@emas-international.de
More info:
www.smartcentregroup.com or www.emas-international.de
www.youtube.com/jacanahelp or www.youtube.com/user/EMASbolivia
Wilde Ganzen and Partin recently organised a day for their members. Walter Mgina and Henk Gijsselhart represented the SMART Centre Foundation and Reinier represented the SMART Centre Group. It was a fruitful day with new contacts and valuable insights.
Wilde Ganzen currently supports two projects with the SMART Centres in Zambia and Malawi, for which it tops up funds raised through Rotary clubs.
The SMART Centres will be represented by Henk Holtslag on two upcoming conferences in the US in September and October. Both conferences have sessions on Self-supply and how Self-supply helps to reach the SDGs.
The Oklahoma University WaTER conference takes place on September 16th.
The UNC Water and Health conference take place on October 11.
Director General Peter Mahal Dhieu Akat (left) at the Ministry of Water Resources and Irrigation in South Sudan announced the establishment of a Smart Centre in his country. He expects that the centre will bring his country more practical skills for drilling bore holes for ground water and placing hand pumps. According to Mr Akat, South Sudan lacks a facility for such vocational training of water technicians. Henk Holtslag (right) of the Smart Centre Group expects the new training facility to become operational later this year. It will be the fifth Eastern African country to have a facility to train water technicians in drilling wells, and in manufacturing and selling hand and rope pumps. The Smart Centres also train entrepreneurs to sell these affordable and repairable water supply products in rural areas. By building a local supply chain that includes skills and maintenance, Holtslag experienced that this approach is the best guarantee to avoid wells to dry up and pumps to be left unused when broken down.
The full news item can be accessed through the website www.dutchwatersector.com.
At the 2019 Stockholm World Water Week, where SMART Centres had a booth and several presentations, an initiative started called “Marshall plan for water for Africa”, including the need for vocational training as done by the Centres. For more info, see the press release.
This proposal may fit into the German proposal a Marshall plan with Africa which was published last year (Denkschrift Afrika).
We hope the initiative will give a boost to the much needed capacity building of WASH practitioners such as the companies the SMART Centres are working with.
August 2019
At this conference the SMART Centres will have a booth D 11 and will present at several sessions including a session in Water entrepreneurs Sunday afternoon (25 Aug) and a session in Sanitation entrepreneurs on Wednesday (28 Aug) and activities of SMART Centre Malawi for Faith & Water on Thursday (29 Aug). For more information, see also the program.
July 2019
The Dutch development organisation SNV leads the “Smart Water for Agriculture” project in Kenya with the aim to increase water productivity for 20.000 farmers. Actions include training of extention workers in innovative technologies via Agriculture Training Centres. In this context advisor Henk Holtslag gave a short training in July at the Kaguru ATC. Topics included, Mzuzu well drilling. Rope pumps, Artificial groundwater tube recharge, Solar pumps and Household water filters. In the picture trainees test the Mzuzu drill technology.
A large number of innovative, low-cost WASH technologies and approaches were demonstrated and several participants said: “this is a real eye opener !”.
Presentations included:
A report and pictures of the Symposium can be accessed here.
All presentations can be downloaded from the website www.smartcentremalawi.com or send a mail to info@smartcentregroup.com