Highlights - SMART Centre Group

Reflection on presence at the Stockholm World Water Week

At the 2025 Stockholm Water Week the GOPA MetaMeta / SMART Centre Group presented the new “Portable solar pump” that was developed in the last 5 years by the Jacana SMART Centre in Zambia based on input of farmers. It can pump 5 – 15 cubic meters per day and in Zambia is sold now at around $220.

We also presented about “supported self-supply” in the session “Restoring landscapes through innovative finance” together with TIARA -SIWI, Tiyeni and IRHA. With examples it was shown that SDG6.1 basic service in Africa is possible at a one-time support of $25/ person in areas with >200 mm rainfall / year.

The supported self-supply model consists of:

Use innovative low-cost technologies,
Focus on family-owned farm wells who share water with neighbors
Productive uses so income generation to pay for pump maintenance

The full recording of the session (and other sessions of the World Water Week) and can be seen at:

Presence at Stockholm World Water Week

The SMART Centre Group will join this year’s Stockholm World Water Week, to take place fron 24 – 28 August at the Waterfront Centre in Stockholm. Together with the Jacana SMART Centre we have our own booth, in which we’ll present the Portable Solar Pump and other SMARTechs and we will take part in several sessions.

The full program of the conference is available here, and you can join online for free.

The details of the sessions can be found below.

Webinar announcement – Integrity for Self-supply

On Wednesday, April 2 – 15:00 – 16:30 CEST, there will be a webinar; Integrity for Self-supply organized by the Water Integrity Network (WIN) & RWSN.

Presentations include experiences with self-supply in Africa, Asia and Finland and discuss aspects like: Transparency, Management and the Human right to water.

The webinar will include experiences how supporting self-supply can help to Leave no one behind in sub-Saharan Africa and it includes a panel discussion and ample conversation with the audience.

Enclosed a flyer and a link for information and registration Integrity for Self-supply (Integrity Talk 13) | WIN.

For more background on self-supply and supported self-supply, check the page with papers/presentations.

Webinar: Supported self-supply: case studies from four continents

MetaMeta / SMART Centre Group will participate in a webinar on ‘Supported self-supply: case studies from four continents‘ on June 18th, at 9.00AM CEST.

Self-supply exists in almost all countries around the world and in specific times and areas can be the dominant form of service provision. Nevertheless, information on this approach typically is scattered and hard to find – mostly due to the passive role of government and the lack of reporting/monitoring mechanisms. This webinar by the RWSN Self-Supply theme will explore the case studies of formal programs to support self-supply from four continents.

As part of the webinar, Henk Holtslag will present on the experiences of the SMART Centre Group in several countries in Southern Africa and Latin America.

Slides are available here.

For the full announcement ‘read more’.

MetaMeta / SMART Centre Group at the COP28

Water & Food was an important topic at the COP28 in Dubai

The senior advisor of the MetaMeta SMART Centre Group (Henk Holtslag) is a Rotarian and was invited by Rotary International to present on 2 game changing water related ideas being;

A. “2with8”. Safe water for 2 billion people with $8 billion, so a 1 time $4 grant/person This is possible with HWTS (Household Water Treatment and Safe storage) and especially household water filters. Promising examples include developments in Ethiopia that has a policy to scale Self-supply that includes HWTS. Presentation / One-pager

B. Deep Bed Farming & SMART water solutions

This presentation includes the example of Malawi where over 25.000 farmers apply DBF combined with Regenerative Agriculture and so increase yields of rainfed crops like maize from 2 to 6 tonnes / ha. The government now promotes DBF and likes to scale to 1 million DBF is an option to store water so adapt to climate change. Combined with low cost wells it has much potential to provide “basic water service” (SDG6.1) in rural areas and impact SDGs for poverty, food, gender and work. Also the eternal headache of pump maintenance is largely solved with this approach as proven in Zambia and other countries. Presentation / One Pager

RWSN Webinar 20 June: Water for food, for drinking, and for rural development – examples at scale

We recently participated in an RWSN-organised webinar with the title: ‘Water for food, for drinking, and for rural development – examples at scale’. Together with Colin Andrews of Tiyeni and Joshua Briemberg of the Nicaragua SMART Centre, Reinier Veldman participated in a discussion on the opportunies for Self-supply in the combination with soil and water conservation, such as Tiyeni’s Deep Bed Farming method.

The recording of the webinar is available on the resources page and below.

Presentation – Recording

IRC All Systems Connect

IRC WASH, together with Water for People and Water for Good hosted the All Systems Connect 2023 symposium in The Hague.

The MetaMeta / SMART Centre Group, together with Tiyeni and IWMI contributed through a session titled: ‘Scaling self-supply in Africa’. This session evaluated lessons learnt, among others from an IRC evaluation, about supported self-supply as an successful scaling approach to reach SDG6.1 in rural Africa at a cost that is 2-6 times lower than conventional WASH delivery models and simultaneously contributes to SDGs for poverty, food security, gender and climate.

There was a good turn-out and an interactive discussion, following the presentations by Barbara van Koppen (IWMI), Colin Andrews (Tiyeni) and Henk Holtslag (MetaMeta / SMART Centre Group). Lemessa Mekonte of IRC moderated the session together with Aline Saraiva of RWSN.

The presentations of the session and posters presented can be accessed through the Resource Page and after the ‘read more’.

UN Water Conference, New York – 2 Virtual Side Events

The SMART Centre Group is facilitating two virtual side events around the UN Water Conference, which will take place in NEw York from 22 – 24 March 2023.

‘2 with 8’ initiative on HWTS

The first virtual side-event will take place on Tuesday 21st March, 09.00AM (EST) and will focus on the recently launched ‘2 with 8’ initiative on HWTS to work towards ‘Safe drinking water for 2 billion people with $8 billion’. During the event there will be presentations from WHO, CAWST, Danone, Navaza, John Cherry and others.

Check the event page and the background document for more info and registration.

Supporting Self-supply

The second virtual side-event will take place on Thursday 23rd March, 09.00AM (EST) and will focus on the huge impact of self-supply in Asia and shares experience how supported self-supply can reach SDG6.1 and increases food security in rural Africa at a 1 time grant of $25 per person. During the event there will be presentations from RWSN, The Groundwater Project, Tiyeni and MetaMeta/SMART Centre Group as well as a moderated discussion with panel and participants.

Check the event page and the background document for more info and registration.

Training in Uganda successfully wrapped up

The training was organized and funded by Rotarian Chris Roesel. The trainers were Brighton Kaniki from Malawi and Data Samuel from South Sudan.

During the training there were several challenges but the 10 people (5 men, 5 women) trained managed to, together, drill one new tubewell and install 2 pumps.

The training can be a start of cooperation between Rotary and SMART Centre Group and presence in Uganda.

Commitment for UN Water Conference

The MetaMeta – SMART Centre Group makes a commitment to the Water Action Agenda as part of the UN Water conference in New York in March 2023. The commitment with the title ‘Reaching SDG6.1 in rural Africa at a cost of $25/ person with the SMART approach; through training the local private sector and supporting self-supply’ is based on the 3-pager ‘Supporting self-supply’ which can be found here.

Together with the Groundwater Project and Tiyeni, the MetaMeta – SMART Centre Group advocates for this approach, as a contribution to reaching the SDG6.1 target by 2030.