Washington, D.C. –The Securing Water for Food (SWFF) program will present five years of results and lessons learned at the 2018 World Water Week in Stockholm, Hype or Groundbreaking: Has Securing Water for Food Delivered? on Monday, August 27 at 4 p.m. in NL Pillar Hall.
Since 2013, USAID, Sweden through the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida), the Government of South Africa, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of the Netherlands have invested $35 million in SWFF and provided critical acceleration support to promote science and technology solutions that enable the production of more food with less water and/or make more water available for food production, processing, and distribution while promoting gender equality and ultimately alleviating poverty.
Securing Water for Food has exceeded the expected outcomes envisioned when the program was created. SWFF innovators have reached a combined 6.25 million smallholder farmers, their families, and other customers. For every $1,000 of donor funding spent by the SWFF program, SWFF innovators impacted 267 customers and end users, produced 267 tons of crops, reduced water consumption by more than 810,000 liters, improved water management on 93 hectares of agricultural land, and generated more than $226 in sales. Through the program’s assistance, many SWFF innovators have become gender champions implementing strategies that promote the participation and leadership of women by actively looking for ways to design their projects in a gender inclusive way.
SWFF innovators have helped produce nearly 4 million tons of food and helped reduce water consumption by 11.4 billion liters.
SWFF innovators have helped produce nearly 4 million tons of food on more than 2.6 million hectares of grazing lands and cropland that are under improved practices due in part to SWFF innovations. SWFF innovations have also helped reduce water consumption by 11.4 billion liters compared to traditional practices.
Hosted and organized by the Stockholm International Water Institute (SIWI), World Water Week (WWW) is the largest global event focusing on water sector and development-related challenges. A diverse panel comprised of SWFF innovators, program beneficiaries, external evaluators, and partners will deliver insights on and explore innovator growth through acceleration, how metrics and milestones inspire action and help the program tell its groundbreaking story, why gender and poverty reduction matters, how pivots drive excellence, and substantiate the importance of lessons learned documentation.
The session will be moderated by Johan Kuylenstierna, Vice Chair, Swedish Climate Policy Council. At the end of the session a new extended phase of the SWFF program, Water and Energy for Food, will be announced in a message from Sida’s Director-General, Carin Jämtin.
