In 2019, Afaf was laid off from her job working at the municipality of her village. As a single woman in Lebanon, it was hard to find another one. Farming became crucial for her income.However, Afaf knew she was going to have to invest in enhancing her farm’s productivity if it was going to become her livelihood. Unable to finance it from her own pocket, she looked for help from an FAO project.

Supported by the European Union (EU) and implemented by FAO in partnership with Agrinatura (a consortium of 31 European universities and research institutes), this project uses a community-based approach that works through reflection, group learning and increased engagement, helping farmers to better adopt innovative methods.

The Best Water Harvesting Practices Report provides recommendations for Scaling up activities in the development of new wadis and rehabilitation of existing wadis construction or rehabilitation of cisterns, Roman wells, and reservoirs provision of agricultural services to farmers and social aspects.

Overall, the 2020 evaluation found FAO projects to have succeeded in achieving expected outputs. The project on land reclamation and water conservation was particularly effective in reaching expected results with likelihood of longer term impact.

FAO, in partnership with the European Union, is supporting farmers by providing them with solar-powered pumps, water-saving drip irrigation kits and training on improved farming practices. The project has set up 42 similar water pumps in various districts across the country, boosting agricultural resilience to economic and ecological shocks.

The Somalia Water and Land Information Management (SWALIM) project has been implemented since inception as a continuum of objectives and activities leading towards empowering selected Somali institutions to achieve self-sufficiency in their capacity to generate and manage natural resources information.

The project will support to the rehabilitation of solar groundwater irrigation-pumping systems in the regained areas. Support will be provided to increase water productivity for irrigated agriculture and promote sustainable water management practices. The farming community in target areas will have improved access to irrigation water.

The El Salvador country office of the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO), with the support of the Mesoamerica Hunger Free Program, helped to develop community and family Rainwater Harvesting Systems (SCALL in Spanish) to mitigate the effects of the drought facing the central American dry corridor.

The year-long project was implemented between Oct 2019 to Dec 2020. This project is part of the Next Generation Irrigation and Water Management for the Asia-Pacific Program (NextGen. Program), an AWP-FAO program aimed at modernizing Asia’s irrigation systems and water management practices.

The project identified four areas that limit progress towards a sustainable rural sector: i) low irrigation water efficiency; ii) limited technical assistance services for family farmers; iii) scarce statistical information on the problem of small-scale livestock farming, and iv) the absence of an updated policy framework for the sustainable development of fishing and aquaculture activities.