Water Harvesting project team prepares scaling up phase

• Its members, including COSUDE , visited CATIE headquarters and held working meetings to define next steps.

July 13, 2022. From July 5 to 8, the technical team of the Adaptation of Agriculture to Climate Change through Water Harvesting in Nicaragua project met at the headquarters of CATIE (Tropical Agricultural Research and Higher Education Center) to define the actions to be developed in the framework of its exit phase.

The project is implemented by CATIE, in collaboration with the Nicaraguan Institute of Agricultural Technology, and with the financial support of the Swiss Cooperation in Central America (COSUDE, its Spanish acronym), in the north-central region of Nicaragua, specifically in 10 municipalities located in the dry corridor of Las Segovias: Ciudad Antigua and Mozonte (Nueva Segovia); Somoto, Totogalpa, Telpaneca, Palacagüina, Yalagüina and San Lucas (Madriz); Pueblo Nuevo and Condega (Estelí).

One of the main goals of the initiative is that more than 2500 families of small and medium-sized producers establish production systems that are more resilient to climate change and improve their food and nutritional security, while ensuring adequate systematization of learning.

During this visit to CATIE, the project's technical team, accompanied by Mauricio Peñalba, COSUDE officer, held coordination meetings with different research units of the Center, seeking opportunities for mutual work, especially with the Ecosystem Modeling Unit, the Livestock and Environmental Management Unit, this, in view of the scaling-up initiative that the project is initiating with the Nicaraguan livestock association and Finally, with the Watershed, Water Security and Soil Unit, with whom he shared the methodology for site selection for water harvesting developed by the project and the advantages of having a related App.

A field tour of CATIE's International Cocoa Collection and Commercial Farm was also conducted, particularly for the climate-smart dairy. In addition, they visited the Graduate School and the Training Unit of the Center to learn about options for developing specialized courses in water harvesting, as well as options for scaling up water harvesting in CATIE's academic offerings, and discussed the possibility of creating a knowledge management platform specifically for water harvesting.

"I congratulate you for the excellent work you have done with the Water Harvest project, as we are working on how we will work on the new phase of the project and how we will achieve its full potential, and it is in our interest to see how we can have more impact at the local level, seeking governance, and also how we can strengthen the capacities of its stakeholders, as well as scale and institutionalize many of the project's issues," said Muhammad Ibrahim, CATIE's director general.

"We have the great challenge of disseminating the methodologies developed by the project to other stakeholders, local and national governments and other sectors. The livestock sector has shown great interest and effectively for them in the dry corridor harvesting water is a great need, so that they can stop losing in the dry season, which is quite pronounced," said Mauricio Peñalba.

The start-up phase of the Cosecha de Agua project will run from November 2022 to April 2024. If you are interested in learning more about this project and its works, please visit https://cosechadeagua.org/.