Lessons from Africa
ADH-funded WASH for Food Security programme
After nearly 18 months of implementation across six African countries, the WASH for Food Security programme funded by Aktion Deutschland Hilft (ADH) through Habitat for Humanity Germany is generating valuable lessons that extend beyond individual country projects.
Across six Habitat for Humanity National Offices in Africa, teams are testing different approaches to WASH, food security and climate resilience, while building a shared body of learning that can strengthen programmes across the region.
During a regional learning and knowledge dissemination workshop convened in Malawi in September by the Africa Area Office, teams from Kenya, Malawi, Uganda, Zambia, Lesotho, Tanzania as well as senior government officials shared experiences and explored scalable approaches for greater impact.
A field visit to Traditional Authority Masumbankunda provided a practical example. Delegates visited sites where Habitat for Humanity Malawi is implementing integrated WASH, climate-smart agriculture and food security interventions, and engaged directly with community members and local implementers. The discussions that followed offered an opportunity to look beyond individual activities and identify lessons that can be applied across the programme.
Different contexts, shared purpose
The six National Offices have not followed a single model. Instead, each has adapted the programme to local priorities, partnerships and opportunities.
In Malawi, the team partnered with LUANAR to bring irrigation to an existing water scheme. In Tanzania, 10 government-provided acres are being irrigated from a high-yield borehole. Uganda established six demonstration gardens with district government, while Kenya focused on strengthening government extension capacity and introduced Water ATMs to support accountability.
In Zambia, school gardens were linked to the national school feeding programme. In Lesotho, a solar water system was combined with school sanitation and keyhole gardens in Mafeteng.
These different approaches are part of what makes the regional programme valuable. They provide an opportunity to see how similar goals can be pursued in different settings, and to identify approaches that others can learn from or adapt.
Key takeaways
The experiences across the six countries highlighted several lessons about delivering integrated WASH, food security and climate-resilience programming in different contexts.
1. Engage communities, government and academia from the start
The programme showed the value of bringing key stakeholders into the process from the outset. Working alongside communities helps ensure interventions respond to local priorities, while partnerships with government and academic institutions can strengthen technical expertise, ownership and the potential for approaches to continue beyond the project.
The country experiences reflected this in different ways, from Malawi’s partnership with LUANAR to Uganda and Tanzania’s collaboration with government structures.
2. Connect WASH with food security and climate resilience
The programme reinforced that water access cannot be considered in isolation from how households and communities produce food and respond to climate pressures. Integrating WASH with food security and climate-resilient approaches can help address several interconnected challenges at once.
The different country interventions demonstrated how this can work in practice, from irrigation and demonstration gardens to school gardens and solar-powered water systems. Schools also emerged as useful entry points for connecting WASH, food and resilience.
3. Build on existing systems
Another clear lesson was the value of working through systems and structures that are already in place, rather than creating parallel structures. Government extension services, existing water infrastructure, school programmes and community structures can provide a foundation for new interventions while strengthening local capacity.
This approach can also support sustainability by leaving behind stronger systems and skills rather than creating parallel structures that are difficult to maintain after a project ends.
4. Make accountability part of the programme
The teams also identified accountability as an important part of effective WASH programming. Approaches such as Kenya’s Water ATMs provide mechanisms for greater transparency around water services, while the wider programme emphasized accountability in line with the Core Humanitarian Standard.
For the teams, accountability is not simply about reporting results. It is about creating ways for communities and other stakeholders to understand, influence and provide feedback on the services being delivered. This is an important part of building WASH services that are responsive, sustainable and grounded in the needs of the people they serve.