A year ago, the Agricultural Transition to Productive Biodiversity project, implemented by MetaMeta and GOPA, set out to explore how nature-based solutions and local participation could restore biodiversity while maintaining agricultural livelihoods.
Three MetaMeta colleagues – Arpan Mondal, Pratik Ranjan and Shubham Jain – working in Madhya Pradesh, Jharkhand and West Bengal described how the project is now moving beyond the pilot stage. “We are approaching the final phase,” said Mondal. “Field-level interventions are ongoing, but the focus has shifted to scaling: how can these approaches be integrated into larger programmes and institutional frameworks?”
Building evidence
The team is now actively working to move beyond the pilot phase by engaging government departments, academic institutions and civil society organisations while simultaneously building a broader evidence base through interviews, videos, field data and documentation.
Three interventions in practice
Since the beginning, the project has centred around the same three interventions: ecological rodent management, the revival of field hedges, and water-efficient rice cultivation through alternate wetting and drying (AWD). But by now, these interventions feel less like components in a project plan and more like aspects that have begun to alter everyday realities.
Rodent management: from inevitability to control
One of the clearest examples comes from ecologically-based rodent management (EBRM).
“Last year,” said Pratik Ranjan, “when we asked farmers how to reduce losses caused by rodents, the common response was that such losses were unavoidable.”
That has changed. Farmers are now more aware of the scale of the problem and of the fact that losses can actually be managed.
According to the team, rodent-related losses in the project areas were previously around 15 to 20 percent. By April 2026, losses reduced substantially, in some cases to below 5 percent where the interventions are actively being implemented. Just as important as the numbers, however, is the change in behaviour.
Farmers are increasingly taking initiatives themselves. In several villages, community members began placing additional bird perches independently after seeing the results of the intervention.
“We trained them last year,” said Pratik Ranjan. “But now when we go to the fields, we see that they know how to do it, and are implementing it on their own.”
Hedges that generate income
The same applies to the project’s work on the revival of field hedges. These hedges are planted along field boundaries using species that can serve multiple purposes, combining ecological and economic benefits. The intervention looks simple, but it required careful negotiation. Farmers first had to be convinced that the boundaries of their fields – which had previously generated little or no value – could become productive. Then came the practical question: which species should be planted?
That question turned out to be crucial. The team needed plants that would survive local agro-climatic conditions and also produce visible benefits for farmers within a reasonable time. In some places, heavy rainfall damaged young plants. In winter, cold weather posed new risks. Adjustments had to be made continuously in response to local conditions and farmer feedback. But despite these setbacks, the hedges are beginning to demonstrate income potential for farmers alongside improvements in soil health, biodiversity, and ecological pest regulation. According to the team, some farmers have earned roughly 10,000 rupees from produce grown on field boundaries, while also benefiting from improved soil quality and biodiversity.
Water management and its limits
The third intervention, AWD, was also the one that most clearly revealed the importance of contextual suitability. AWD is a method of rice cultivation in which fields are not continuously flooded. Instead, irrigation alternates with dry periods, reducing water use and often improving soil and pest conditions. In principle, it is a promising climate-resilient practice. In practice, however, it depends on local topography and water control.
That became clear when the team tried to implement it in Jharkhand and Madhya Pradesh. In those areas, sloping terrain and unpredictable rainfall meant that water drained away too quickly. Farmers could not control field conditions well enough for the method to work.
“We tried a lot with the community,” explained Arpan Kumar. “We invested time, but it proved difficult to operationalise under those field conditions.”
According to the team, one of the most important lessons from the project is that such interventions depend on clearly identifiable conditions. In the case of AWD, reliable irrigation access, flatter terrain and suitable cropping systems proved essential.
Adapting to local realities
That experience became an important lesson in adaptive implementation. Rather than treating the intervention as universally applicable, the project increasingly focused on understanding which ecological and agricultural conditions were needed in order for specific practices to realistically succeed.
In West Bengal, AWD is now being piloted more successfully.
Women as changemakers
The changes the team described are not limited to techniques. They also concern social dynamics, especially around women’s roles in farming. In many of the communities involved, women already do much of the agricultural work, but they are not always recognised as decision-makers. That is beginning to shift.
Women have played a central role in adopting the interventions, often through self-help groups that already function as important local networks. The project has used these groups not simply as channels for outreach, but as spaces where women can speak more freely, discuss farming decisions and take on practical responsibilities. In some cases, women farmers decided themselves to adopt hedges, EBRM or AWD and then convinced their family members to go along with it. The team was careful not to present the project as a gender-based intervention. However, because many of the participating farmers were women, the interventions indirectly strengthened women’s visibility, technical confidence and decision-making role within local agricultural systems.
“How can we recognise women as farmers in this society?” asked Arpan Mondal. In many regions, women carry out much of the hands-on agricultural labour – from planting and weeding to harvesting and processing – while formal decision-making and land ownership often remain concentrated with men.
Scaling beyond pilots
Another recurring theme was the question of scale. According to the team, this is because the problems addressed by the project – inefficient water use, biodiversity decline and rodent-related crop losses – are not limited to a single region, but occur across large parts of India and beyond.
The team appears cautiously optimistic, but remains realistic about the complexity of institutional adoption. Government uptake requires evidence, policy alignment and coordination across multiple levels. For that reason, the project is pursuing several routes simultaneously, including partnerships with universities, local authorities and civil society organisations.
Bringing knowledge into institutions
Academic institutions have emerged as a particularly interesting route. The team has begun speaking to agricultural universities and other social institutions about including topics such as EBRM and field hedges in courses. That matters because some of the issues the project addresses – especially rodent damage – are still not discussed enough in formal agricultural education.
“People are not talking about these things,” said Shubham Jain. “So how can we add them to courses?”
Transferability and broader relevance
This effort to embed the work in training and policy reflects a broader confidence that the interventions are transferable. EBRM, for instance, is relevant far beyond the current project areas, since rodent losses are a national issue. The team also pointed out that elements of the project resonate with initiatives in other countries. Hedges are already part of discussions elsewhere, sometimes with different goals such as carbon sequestration or biodiversity. EBRM-related work has appeared in countries such as Vietnam, Lebanon and Ethiopia. AWD, too, may be applicable in other contexts where rice production and water scarcity intersect.
Lessons beyond India
In India, the interventions are tied closely to livelihoods and smallholder survival. In Europe, similar practices might be adopted more explicitly in the context of climate goals, green transitions or food security. The local purpose may change, but the ecological principles remain similar. According to the team, the interventions rely on identifiable conditions – such as water availability, land structure or existing farming systems – that can help determine where particular approaches are most likely to succeed.
Personal takeaways
One of the moments that really stayed with the team came when farmers began continuing interventions independently. In one case, women farmers in Jharkhand organised rodent management activities themselves after noticing rodents returning to the fields – without waiting for instructions from the project team.
“It was very rewarding to see,” Meghna Mukherjee, Programme Manager at MetaMeta Research, reflected. “At that point it stopped feeling like something external being introduced to communities. People had started taking ownership themselves.”
Other lessons emerged more gradually. In communities where household incomes can remain very modest, even relatively small gains from hedges or reduced crop losses proved meaningful for families. And for the team working on AWD, the experience in Madhya Pradesh clarified that success depended less on the idea itself than on whether local conditions – such as irrigation access and cropping patterns – actually allowed the intervention to work.
At that point it stopped feeling like something external being introduced to communities. People had started taking ownership themselves.
Looking ahead
Taken together, their reflections suggest a project that has become more grounded as it has progressed. What began as a biodiversity initiative now appears equally concerned with trust, adaptation and recognition.
The project may be nearing its formal conclusion. But if the field teams are right, its most important phase may just be beginning: the gradual transition from isolated field interventions towards a broader systemic change in how agriculture, biodiversity and rural livelihoods are understood and managed. At the same time, the project is generating practical knowledge about the conditions under which biodiversity-based interventions can be replicated elsewhere.
Learn more about our delta country IndiaIn the Humans of Partners for Water series, we showcase the people who are involved in our projects. The series sheds light on the stories of people who work with and for Partners for Water and how water affects their lives. Discover how Falahy Mohamad’s passion for sustainable batik is motivating him to protect Indonesia’s waterways for future generations.
Meet Falahy Mohamad
Falahy Mohamad is a sustainable batik artist from Indonesia. Through his craft, he is reimagining how one of Indonesia’s most beloved cultural traditions can be practised with care for the environment and for future generations.
Every drop counts
Batik production depends heavily on water and in some cities, the consequences of untreated wastewater are visible in rivers that run black for months at a time. For Falahy, this reality is personal. Witnessing the steady decline of groundwater levels and seeing floodwaters creep into urban streets has heightened his sense of responsibility, both as a craftsman and as a citizen.
“The water we use every day feels very different when you see the significant decline in groundwater and witness tidal flooding in corners of the city. It raises concerns about what the next five or ten years will look like. That drives me to be much wiser in how I use water and more responsible – so that we do not pass this crisis on to the next generation.”
Dutch-Indonesian water cooperation
Indonesia is one of seven delta countries in the Partners for Water programme 2022–2027. With support from Partners for Water, Dutch and Indonesian partners are testing community-led wastewater treatment solutions for the batik sector through the Green Batik Pekalongan pilot – turning rivers from black to clear and helping an age-old craft find a sustainable future. Read more about the project here.
In this Failing Forward? episode, Cristal Ange, General Director of Fundación Herencia Ambiental Caribe (Caribbean Environmental Heritage Foundation), reflects on how her understanding of community participation evolved from routine meetings to something far more personal for those participating. Drawing on a jaguar conservation project in Colombia’s Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, she challenges how scientists, development practitioners and funders define participation, and how ‘what looks like success’ may, on closer inspection, be something else entirely.
In 2008, the National Parks System of Colombia approached Fundación Herencia Ambiental Caribe (Caribbean Environmental Heritage Foundation) to help them assess the jaguar population and plan conservation efforts in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta, a coastal mountain range in northern Colombia. Jaguars are a good indicator of a healthy ecosystem, as the wild cats favour dense forest, river, and wetland habitats, keeping a check on prey species and maintaining the ecosystem balance. When local communities are involved in jaguar conservation, it essentially helps protect the forests and waterways they rely on. Accordingly, the project engaged local communities and the indigenous group, the Arhuaco, to understand the jaguars’ path in the coastal mountains.
“It was an open and participatory project, where the Arhuaco people would gather scientific evidence about jaguar movement and their path. We travelled to different villages, organised meetings with the indigenous residents, and showed portraits of jaguars to enquire how they referred to jaguars and the sites where they were spotted,” recounted biopsychologist Cristal Ange, the General Director of the foundation, which focuses on sustainable water management and biodiversity protection by partnering with indigenous, Afro-descendant and peasant communities in Colombia.
Beyond gleaning information, the team trained the indigenous people to use camera traps and the methodologies to learn about jaguars and their trails. They also organised capacity workshops to help the indigenous people understand what they were doing, and how that information would be used.
After a year, the team closed the first phase of the project. “We found the jaguar sites, as well as collected pictures and magical stories to share with the world. We also understood how to cooperate with local communities. It was a success,” Cristal remarked.
“Or, was it really successful?”, she quickly paused to consider.
Cristal attributed her reservations about calling the project a success to the consultative and technocratic approach to community participation the team had adopted throughout. “We were too focused on what the science told us, and not enough on ancestral knowledge and ways of understanding the territory held by the communities,” she acknowledged.
We were too focused on what science told us, and not enough on what people already knew
Displacing knowledge pluralism
In the post-war era, community participation was adopted as an essential ‘tool’ for development projects in the Global South; as an antidote to the repeated failure to meet the project objectives and outcome; and to counter the traditional top-down strategies that failed to include the people’s voices.
Community participation became a precondition to funding. Projects designed participation approaches around scientific and technical knowledge frameworks, donor mandates, and a pre-determined set of criteria, while (paradoxically) expecting new knowledge to emerge from this renewed focus. And while the project runs, residents support it, attend meetings, and some may temporarily find a job. They are trained and armed with Western and Eurocentric rules and guidelines to approach the very territories they inhabit and interact with every day. The project led by Ange’s foundation to scientifically establish the jaguar path is one such case.
Sample this: An indigenous community member, familiar with jaguar territory and movement in Sierra Nevada, had predicted the animal’s presence before placing the camera traps provided by the team. He knew, without checking, that his camera had captured jaguars. The request for photographic evidence to trace the jaguar’s path sparked his curiosity, as it pointed toward forms of data and ecological information that extended beyond the traditional understanding of jaguar movements.
“Yet, our attention remained centred on the project’s technical requirements and the funders’ interest in ecological data about the species, rather than on the broader ancestral knowledge that had informed his observations,” she recounted
This serves as a powerful empirical illustration of unintentionally reducing the participant to a data collector instead of a knowledge holder. “Traditional Western means of participation incorporate people into how we, as scientists, think jaguars should be conserved. But what do we know about what is the right way for them?” Cristal reflected.
In its noblest vision, community participation is designed to promote dialogue, interaction, learning, and co-production of knowledge between development agents and the community members. In practice, though, community members are often consulted after the project is designed; they are excluded in the implementation, monitoring and evaluation stages; or are approached to resolve a particular information problem to achieve the predetermined project goal.
As a result, community participation has often unfolded within institutional and scientific frameworks, which open important spaces for collaboration between researchers and local knowledge holders, but at the same time, continue to be shaped largely by Western approaches to how knowledge should be validated, interpreted and incorporated into development projects. It systematically devalues and displaces indigenous people from their own everyday reality or their ways of knowing. Such approaches have reinforced themselves as a tool to legitimise Western, neocolonial projects rather than a veritable power-sharing and knowledge co-production procedure.
Paying attention to this contradiction entails self-reflection: did ‘new knowledge’ eventually emerge? Was ‘power’ distributed unidirectionally? Did it eventually devolve into the very ‘subject-object relation’ that community participation set out to eliminate?
Understanding the ‘other’ knowledge
Cristal and her team shifted their base closer to Santa Marta to spend a considerable time going into the jaguar territories with the tribal elders — not to organise workshops, but to sit down with the people, observe their daily activities, and understand their reality, rituals and knowledge, with humility. Now into the second phase of the jaguar conservation project, the team focuses on what matters most to the indigenous people: conserving the jaguar’s spiritual energy, which they believe is a living force, embodied in natural elements, such as a rock or sacred sites. “There is no scientific explanation, but it is the elders’ way of knowing,” Cristal challenged.
Their guiding principle: “If we want to conserve jaguars, how can people support science, and also how can we, as scientists, development practitioners and funders, support and learn about the local ways of conserving the animals.”
A rock identified during the project, for instance, illustrated this difference in perspectives. From an ecological standpoint, the site did not play a measurable role in jaguar conservation. Yet for the indigenous communities, conserving the rock was essential. It was understood as a sacred jaguar site where the animal’s spiritual energy resides and the broader balance of the territory is maintained. The project thus began to recognise that conservation is not only about protecting habitats and species populations, but also about sustaining the cultural and spiritual relationships that shape how communities coexist with the jaguar. “Our goal was not merely to acknowledge indigenous practices, but to validate their knowledge and embed it at the heart of the project,” she emphasised.
Our goal was not merely to acknowledge indigenous practices, but to validate their knowledge and embed it at the heart of the project
Success for whom?
Understanding failures entails a growing self-awareness of how practitioners and scientists can mistake failures for success. In the traditional methods of implementing development projects, participation includes organising workshops, capacity strengthening sessions, and handing down scientific ways of knowing and working with the local community. The latter’s ‘contract’ as participants often ends at this stage, with no active role in the evaluation and monitoring phases of the project cycle. When zooming in on this aspect, the project is a success – but for whom?
To the donors, scientists, and the NGO, the project was a success. When considering the project more holistically — including whether participation translated into changes that mattered in the daily realities of the community — the project may also reveal important limitations in what it was ultimately able to achieve for the people involved.
For such a feedback system to be practical and functional, one needs to go back to the drawing board to assess whether the project makes sense to the local community or the participants. As Cristal, too, reflects, if a project cannot explain how it ties into the people’s local persuasions, it will not work in the long run. It may continue to operate and generate scientific data considered relevant for institutional and conservation decision-making, but if that knowledge does not also resonate with the priorities, relationships, and ways of deciding within the local communities themselves, its impact may remain limited once the funding cycle ends.
Another sticking point of projects that work in indigenous territories and with their people is funding. Supporting both ways of knowing demands a budget for what funders think should be done, but also for local ways of doing things. However, funding with the correct attitude towards local knowledge and beliefs, too, is critical. “A rock, for instance, may not have added to the ecological value of the jaguar corridor, but it added to the personal value of the project,” she challenged the rampant compartmentalisation among development agencies of what counts and does not count as knowledge.
For Cristal, the project’s most important lesson was not that science had failed, but that scientific frameworks alone were insufficient to understand the full complexity of coexistence in the territory. Being honest about those limitations opened the possibility of recognising other forms of knowledge that had long sustained relationships between people, jaguars, and the forest. In many ways, these approaches were already working on the ground — not necessarily through scientific indicators, but through rituals, practices, and sacred sites that had enabled coexistence across generations. The question is no longer whether these other ways of knowing exist or matter, but whether conservation institutions and funders are willing to invest in them on their own terms.
As the conversation drew to a close, she considered how people’s participation in knowledge co-production ought to be: “Development projects are not only important for the Western academic sector or NGOs. It belongs equally to the people. They may not engage with the project through the same technical or scientific frameworks in which the plan is designed, but they understand its importance and how it complements their own ways of understanding and relating to the territory.”
Want to learn more about Failing Forward?
Failing Forward? is an initiative that provides an open space for constructive, critical reflections and learnings about challenges, setbacks, and failures in water and climate adaptation interventions. Each month, we publish a new article in this series.
Failing Forward?Across large parts of India, agriculture is under growing pressure. Years of monocropping, intensive use of fertilizers and pesticides, and declining soil health have made farming increasingly difficult for many communities. In some of the country’s most vulnerable rural regions, farmers are now looking for new ways to restore both productivity and ecological balance.
One initiative addressing these challenges is the project “Agricultural Transition to Productive Biodiversity”, supported by the Dutch Government, Partners for Water programme and implemented by the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO). The project focuses on nature-based solutions that help farmers restore soil health, reduce crop losses and strengthen biodiversity while maintaining livelihoods.
At the centre of the project is Meghna Mukherjee, Programme Manager at MetaMeta Research, a Wageningen-based consulting organisation specialising in water management, climate adaptation and agricultural development. Originally from India, Mukherjee has spent the past eight years working at the intersection of water management, agriculture and social inclusion. Her role combines programme management with a strong focus on gender and community engagement. “We work on practical solutions that can be implemented directly in the field,” she explains. “The aim is not only to test innovative approaches but also to understand how they can be scaled and adopted by communities themselves.”
A global research network
MetaMeta Research was founded in 2004 in Wageningen and has since expanded into an international organisation with offices in countries including Bangladesh, Indonesia, Ethiopia and Yemen. The company collaborates closely with governments, NGOs and local communities to develop water management and climate-resilient solutions. “What makes us unique is that we combine research with on-the-ground implementation,” Mukherjee says. In 2024, the organisation became part of the German development consultancy GOPA, expanding its international reach while maintaining its focus on water and climate solutions.
Water, gender and daily realities
One of Mukherjee’s core research interests is the relationship between water access and gender. In many parts of the world, women are responsible for collecting water for both household use and agriculture, often walking long distances under difficult conditions. But the issue goes beyond physical labour. “There are also social norms and power dynamics,” Mukherjee says. “Even when water is available nearby, women are still expected to collect it.”
These dynamics also appear in everyday tasks such as laundry, which is still largely performed manually by women in many regions. The water used can contain chemicals or contaminants that cause health problems, yet this aspect of hygiene rarely receives attention. Despite growing awareness, Mukherjee believes much work remains to be done. “In some cases, women’s voices are heard but not included in decision-making,” she says. “In others they are not even heard at all.”
Connecting institutions and communities
Addressing these challenges requires cooperation between many actors. One of the project’s key strategies is therefore to connect stakeholders that normally operate separately. “Different institutions often work in their own ‘boxes’,” Mukherjee explains. “Water departments, agricultural authorities and gender programmes rarely coordinate their activities.” The project aims to break these silos by encouraging dialogue between government agencies, local organisations and farming communities. “When these groups come together, they begin to understand the problems from different perspectives,” she says.
Another important element is evidence building. The project documents result and shares them with policymakers and development organisations through reports, social media and professional networks. “We try many different strategies,” Mukherjee says. “Sometimes you don’t know which one will work, but together they help create awareness.”
Three nature-based solutions
The project focuses on three main interventions that aim to improve agricultural productivity while strengthening biodiversity.
Reviving traditional hedges
The first intervention involves reintroducing hedges as green corridors along agricultural fields. “Hedges used to be a common feature in farming landscapes, both in India and in Europe,” Mukherjee explains. “But over time they disappeared as farmers tried to maximise cultivation areas.”
The project is now reviving this traditional practice by planting species such as pigeon pea and acacia along field boundaries. These hedges serve several functions. They protect crops from animals, improve soil stability and help retain water. They can also generate additional income when crops such as pigeon pea are harvested. Research has also shown that hedges influence the microclimate of agricultural fields. “We are observing temperature differences of up to 2.5 degrees Celsius between fields with and without hedges,” Mukherjee says.
Ecological rodent management
The second intervention addresses a problem that farmers often face but that rarely receives attention: crop losses caused by rodents. “Rodents are responsible for significant pre- and post-harvest losses,” Mukherjee says. “But people rarely talk about it.” Instead of using chemical rodenticides, the project promotes ecologically based rodent management (EBRM). Communities use techniques such as improved storage systems, hermetic bags and coordinated burrow control. The results have been striking. “In the last three months alone, more than 200 households have participated and over 90 rodent burrows have been closed,” she says. For many farmers, recognising the scale of the problem has been a revelation. “Some of them told us nobody had ever asked about rodents before.”
Water-efficient rice cultivation
The third intervention focuses on rice production through a method known as alternate wetting and drying. Traditionally, rice fields are kept continuously flooded. However, research shows that rice can grow well without standing water. The new method alternates irrigation with dry periods, reducing water use and improving soil conditions. “It requires a mind-set change for farmers,” Mukherjee says. “But once they see the results, many become interested.”
“It requires a mind-set change for farmers. But once they see the results, many become interested.”
Working with farmers
The design of these interventions was strongly influenced by farmers themselves. For example, during discussions about hedges, farmers suggested the species best suited to local conditions. “They know the land much better than we do,” Mukherjee says. The adoption of alternate wetting and drying also began with a small group of inventive farmers. “In one village, two women farmers decided to try the new method,” she explains. “Their success encouraged others to follow.”
Building trust with communities took time. But partnerships with local organisations such as PRADAN and FES, which have long worked in the region, helped establish strong relationships. “At first there was some scepticism,” Mukherjee says. “If someone tells you that what you’ve been doing for years can be improved, you won’t immediately believe them.” Today, however, many farmers are sharing experiences with each other through WhatsApp groups and local networks. “It’s become much more organic,” she says.
Looking beyond pilot projects
The project currently operates in three Indian states – Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and West Bengal – covering several districts within what is known as the Central India Tribal Belt. These regions are home to many vulnerable communities and smallholder farmers. The next challenge is scaling up successful interventions beyond the pilot areas. “We now have strong evidence that these approaches work,” Mukherjee says. “The question is how to integrate them into larger programmes and policies.” This requires collaboration with government authorities, donor organisations and international partners. “We are already discussing these ideas with district agricultural departments and water authorities,” she says.
A long-term perspective
For Mukherjee, the most rewarding aspect of the project is seeing different groups come together. “My role is often to act as a bridge between the field teams and the donors,” she explains. “I help translate local realities into strategies and policies.” She works closely with a local team that plays a key role in implementing the project on the ground. Pratik Ranjan focuses on ecological rodent management (EBRM), Shubham Jain works on the restoration of hedges and Arpan Mondal supports the implementation of alternate wetting and drying in rice cultivation. Although each has specific responsibilities, they collaborate closely, discussing challenges together and carrying out activities as a team.
Although the project itself will eventually conclude, its impact may continue through the networks and knowledge it has created. Farmers are already sharing techniques with neighbouring communities, and manuals developed during the project can be adapted for other regions. “These solutions are simple and flexible,” Mukherjee says. “That means they can potentially be used in many different countries.”
In the end, the goal is not simply to complete a project, but to initiate a broader transformation. “There is still so much potential,” she says. “But what we are seeing now gives us hope that agriculture can become both productive and sustainable again.”
Learn more about our Delta country IndiaWith the Humans of Partners for Water series, we showcase the people who are involved in and benefit from our projects. The Humans series highlights the stories of the people with whom and for whom Partners for Water works, and on how water affects their lives. Discover how Mario Ciono’s dedication to his community in Cartagena is helping restore the city’s rivers and protect its neighbourhoods from environmental damage.
Meet Mario Ciono Fuentes
Meet Mario Ciono Fuentes, President of the Community Action Board of the Villa Rosa neighbourhood in Cartagena, Colombia. As a community leader, he represents the voice of his neighbourhood in efforts to improve the local environment and protect residents from the impact of pollution and climate-related hazards.
Water as life
For Mario Ciono, water is not simply a resource, it is the foundation of life itself. Living in Cartagena, he sees first-hand how pollution and the effects of human activity are putting pressure on the city’s rivers and natural surroundings, and how urgent it is to protect them.
“Water is a natural resource…it is life, it is the most beautiful thing that nature could give to humankind. We take care of it, we conserve it, and we work for it.”
Dutch-Colombian water cooperation
Colombia is one of seven delta countries in the Partners for Water 2022–2027 programme. In Cartagena, the programme finances the Water as Leverage Cartagena initiative, which develops inclusive and innovative climate adaptation solutions together with Colombian, Dutch and international partners.
Partners for Water collaborates with Colombian national and local governments, the private sector, NGOs, academia and community organisations to enhance water security and climate change adaptation in the country’s delta cities and agricultural regions.
Community voices such as Mario’s are an important part of this process, helping to ensure that solutions for cleaner rivers and a healthier coastline reflect the needs and realities of the people who live there.
Beyond Cartagena, Partners for Water also supports projects across Colombia through its subsidy scheme, enabling Dutch and Colombian organisations to develop and test innovative water solutions, such as initiatives to address freshwater scarcity and soil salinisation in the Magdalena Delta.
Get involved in Colombia
Are you currently working on water projects in Colombia or exploring how to do so? Or just interested in participating in Partners for Water initiatives? Here are some ways for you to get involved:
- Apply for our tenders focused on innovative solutions in delta countries like Colombia. Find more information on our news page.
- Join our annual Colombia platform meeting or one of the other Partners for Water events. Check out our events page for upcoming events.
- Follow us on LinkedIn and subscribe to our newsletter to stay updated on our tenders, activities, events and projects.
- Get in touch with our Project Advisor for Colombia Robert Proos.
Waterproof 2026 brought together more than 400 water experts, policymakers, academics and innovators in The Hague to collaborate on solutions for global climate action, water security and sustainable development ahead of the UN Water Conference.
The future of water security was the theme for the events final roundtable specifically how can innovations become lasting practical solutions on the ground. Water engineer Dorien Lugt of HKV opened the session with a direct challenge to the sector: innovation only succeeds when paired with transparency, honest self-reflection and realistic implementation.
The Reality of Urban Flooding
Lugt highlighted the growing pressures facing rapidly urbanising cities such as Accra, Abidjan and Nairobi. Rapid population growth and land scarcity continue to push vulnerable communities into building homes in flood-prone areas, including riverbeds while drainage and waste systems struggle to keep pace. Blocked drains, expanding paved surfaces and more extreme rainfall combine to create devastating floods that can occur within hours.
While Dutch water experts frequently respond with advanced technological solutions, Lugt warned that technology alone cannot solve these challenges. AI forecasting systems, satellite imagery and predictive models may hold enormous potential, but they are often introduced into environments struggling with unstable internet access, unreliable electricity, limited maintenance budgets and high staff turnover.
“Technologies alone don’t solve issues,” Lugt stated, emphasising that if a solution cannot function under real-world constraints, it was never a true solution in the first place.
To truly transform innovation into sustainable impact, Lugt identified three major areas where critical thinking often falls short.
Three blind spots in implementation
To transform innovation into sustainable impact, Lugt suggested that the sector needs greater transparency and self-reflection about how projects are designed and delivered.
The first challenge is defining the problem itself. While participatory approaches are increasing amongst the Dutch water sector, practitioners often accept stakeholder narratives too quickly without verifying whether they reflect local realities.
Lugt recalled a flood forecasting project in Ethiopia where a municipal officer described challenges using language that perfectly matched the engineers’ expectations. The team later discovered that the officer held a PhD in disaster risk management and was unconsciously repeating academic frameworks rather than offering practical local insight.
Lugt stressed that practitioners must question where information originates to avoid solving theoretical problems rather than addressing actual community needs.
The second challenge is project design. Even when problems are correctly identified, projects frequently fail of competing institutional pressures.
The private sector must protect profitability, researchers pursue publications, NGOs advance advocacy goals and donors focus on measurable KPIs. Lugt noted: “While these motivations are understandable, they are rarely discussed openly so projects become shaped by hidden incentives”.
The third challenge is projects becoming trapped in process. While governance, inclusion and stakeholder engagement are essential, Lugt warned that projects can become trapped in endless consultations and assessments. Communities facing severe flooding need more than reports, they need real implementation. “Move”, she urged warning that projects risk becoming bureaucratic exercises rather than meaningful climate action.
Technologies alone don’t solve issues
From Discussion to Action: The 2030 Breakthrough Plans
Lugt’s closing summary to be critically of how the sector defines problems, designs solutions and evaluates impact served as the perfect springboard for the afternoon’s roundtable discussions.
Inspired by her insightful and moving speech, the roundtables explored how to co-create a “2030 breakthrough plan” capable of accelerating progress toward balanced water security. Many of the ideas that emerged directly reflected Lugt’s call to confront infrastructure gaps, financing structures and operational realities.
Redesigning Project Management
Participants called for project frameworks that prioritise rigorous local problem definition from the outset and called for greater decision-making power to be placed in the hands of local communities, civil society organisations and grassroots actors.
Long-term monitoring and evaluation, they argued, should be integrated from the outset rather than treated as a final reporting exercise.
Learning from Failure
A major theme throughout the discussions was the need to normalise honest conversations about failure — or “failing forward.”
Participants argued that the sector learns too slowly because organisations are often unwilling to publicly discuss unsuccessful projects. One proposed solution was the creation of platforms dedicated to sharing “beautiful failures,” enabling institutions to openly learn from operational mistakes, ineffective models and collaboration breakdowns.
Building Financial Sustainability
Many water projects collapse once international funding ends. Participants stressed the importance of embedding maintenance plans, operational financing and clear exit strategies into projects from the beginning.
Local institutions, they argued, must be trained, funded and positioned to independently manage infrastructure over the long term.
Reforming Funding Models
Experts also called for more flexible and patient financing structures. Rather than prioritising short-term, high-visibility technology pilots, funding models should support slower, context-driven implementation and long-term scaling.
Participants encouraged greater investment in rural water access, circular systems and nature-based solutions alongside cutting-edge technologies.
Connecting Technology with Local Reality
Finally, participants explored how advanced technologies could better support local needs. Suggestions included open-source data systems, shared digital twins and collaborative platforms capable of connecting international technology providers with local governments, NGOs and researchers.
The goal, participants emphasised, is not simply to develop more technology, but to ensure that innovation is grounded in operational realities serving local realities.
Conclusion
The conversations at Waterproof 2026 made one thing unmistakably clear: the future of international water security will not be determined by technology alone, but by a willingness to confront uncomfortable truths about how the sector operates.
Forecasting systems, AI models, satellite imagery and digital tools all hold enormous potential — but only when grounded in genuine local needs, supported by sustainable financing and paired with honest collaboration throughout every stage of implementation.
Lugt’s call for transparency challenges the Dutch water sector to move beyond polished strategies and theoretical innovation toward practical, accountable action. That means questioning assumptions, openly acknowledging institutional constraints, learning from failure and ensuring communities remain empowered long after the project ends.
If innovation is to create lasting impact, success can no longer be measured solely by the sophistication of technology or the ambition of project plans. It must instead be measured by whether solutions continue functioning years later — under real-world conditions, in the hands of local communities and in service of long-term climate resilience.
The path forward is not simply about building smarter systems, but building more honest partnerships and more durable structures that are sustainable long after the pilots and funding cycles end.
More on Waterproof“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.” Thomas Edison’s words could be the motto for this edition of the Waterproof podcast, where guests share what happened when water projects didn’t go quite as planned – and what the sector learned from it.
This article is based on the ‘Failing Forward’ episode of Waterproof, a podcast by Partners for Water.
A quiz show about menstruation might seem like an unusual way to start a conversation about water and sanitation failures. But that is exactly what Esther Shaylor, Innovation Manager at UNICEF and part of the WASH Failure Movement, did – using humour to break down the barriers that keep professionals from openly discussing what goes wrong.
In the Waterproof podcast episode ‘Failing Forward’ Tracy Metz speaks with four guests who have all, in their own way, learned that progress in the water sector often comes through trial, error and honest reflection.
Talking about failure openly
Esther is the driving force behind the WASH Failure Movement. She has spent years encouraging colleagues to speak openly about projects that did not go as planned. “We really want to talk about failure,” she says. “We want to openly and freely share it so that we can learn from it.”
That openness has surfaced some striking stories. In Afghanistan, pipes were laid to bring water directly to women’s doorsteps – seemingly a clear improvement. But for many women, the daily walk to collect water was also their only opportunity to leave the house and meet others. The result: some damaged the pipes themselves so that water collection, and the social contact that came with it, could continue.
Then there is the story of the jerrycan. UNICEF set out to design and manufacture an improved jerrycan for emergency settings, investing heavily in research and a custom mould. When it was finally tested with users, however, most still preferred the original product. “This is something I have learned repeatedly,” Shaylor reflects. “We need to define what success looks like before we start.”
When good intentions meet a different context
For Zahid Amin Shashoto of Uttaran, a grassroots organisation in southwest coastal Bangladesh, failure is often less about technology and more about context. In the 1960s, Dutch-style polders were introduced to support intensive farming. But unlike in the Netherlands, water that entered these polders could not easily get out, leaving the land waterlogged for months at a time.
“My community is primarily farmers,” Shashoto explains. “And if farmers don’t have farmland – if it’s underwater – they go out.” Many farmers leased their flooded land to large-scale shrimp farmers, introducing saltwater onto land that had supported rice cultivation for generations.
“Serious mistakes were made in thinking that Bangladesh looks very much like the Netherlands, which it doesn’t,” Shashoto says. “The technology itself isn’t bad. But introducing the technology without considering the context is a mistake.” A related lesson came from a project that provided arsenic and salt filtration systems for drinking water: highly effective, but too costly for communities reliant on government subsidies to maintain once the project ended.
Uttaran’s response has been to shift towards what Shashoto calls a “negotiated approach”: channelling funding directly to communities so they can address water, education and land issues together, as a collective.
A safe space to fail
At the Green Village, a field lab at TU Delft, failure is built into the design. “For us, it’s interesting to look at things that are new, that are not yet applied or not yet validated,” explains Lindsey Schwidder, programme manager for climate adaptation. “And here, they are also allowed to fail.”
One entrepreneur tested a pavement substructure made from recycled glass waste, designed to store rainwater underground. The product worked, but because it was officially classified as ‘waste’, every delivery required a separate environmental permit. The barrier was not the technology, but the paperwork. Eventually, the material was reclassified as a building material, resolving the issue.
Other experiments reveal similar friction. Lighter-coloured pavements could reduce summer temperatures by several degrees, but municipal style guides often prescribe specific colours, making adoption difficult. And for green parking spaces designed to let rainwater filter into the ground, it is not always clear which municipal department is responsible for maintenance. As Schwidder puts it, making climate adaptation work requires bringing legal experts, financial teams, contractors and maintenance departments to the table, not just engineers.
Serious mistakes were made in thinking that Bangladesh looks very much like the Netherlands, which it doesn’t.
Failure as part of diplomacy
Even at the highest levels of international water diplomacy, things do not always go to plan. Former Water Envoy Henk Ovink, who now leads the Global Commission on the Economics of Water, recalls preparations for the 2023 UN Water Conference with Tajikistan. Early on, communication stalled: “There was a shopping list from the Netherlands on what needed to change. And on Tajikistan’s side, there was the question: why do we need to change course?”
By investing time in understanding each other’s perspectives, the relationship recovered and strengthened. “We made the mistake of being too preoccupied with our own ideas,” Ovink reflects. “But we learned fast, and it really paid off.”
For Ovink, this is the essence of failing forward: “A lot of things go wrong before things really go right. Learning is exactly what failure is all about.”
As Edison put it, failure is just another way of finding out what does not work. Across the water sector – from UNICEF’s jerrycans to Bangladesh’s polders, from Delft’s experimental pavements to UN water diplomacy – the willingness to examine what went wrong, and why, is what turns setbacks into progress.
Listen to the podcastIn western Kenya, the Nyando River catchment is caught in a cycle of flooding, land degradation and failing harvests. Trust 2 Impact, supported by Partners for Water, is working to break that cycle. Not by fixing isolated problems, but by addressing the system as a whole and ensuring that those who restore the land share in its benefits. Co-founder Victor Langenberg and Kenya Country Manager Professor Humphrey Oborah explain why that distinction matters.
Why fixing one thing is never enough
As a systems thinker and water expert, Victor Langenberg has spent four decades working on water systems in Africa. During that time, he has seen forests planted that never survived, water pumps that stopped working, and agro-programmes whose effects faded within five years. “When I travel through Africa, I see the remnants of projects where 80 percent has simply evaporated,” he says. “That is heartbreaking. ”
The reason, in his view, is structural. “Deforestation leads to soil degradation, soil degradation leads to flooding, flooding destroys harvests, destroyed harvests drive poverty, and poverty forces farmers to overuse the land,” he explains. “For lasting success, you cannot fix one part. You have to flip the system; step in together and turn that downward spiral into a cycle of restoration, resilience and opportunity.” That conviction is what led him to co-found Trust 2 Impact. “We aim to go about it completely differently.”
A view from the inside
Professor Humphrey Oborah brings a different but complementary perspective. Born and raised in the Nyando River catchment area, he knows this landscape from the inside. Four years ago, he joined as Trust 2 Impact’s Kenya Country Manager. “As a native of the region, I can speak with the community in their own dialect and align with their sufferings,” he says. “But I also wanted to bring my international connections and education in cultural and human science to find a lasting solution.”
Together with a dedicated team, they are now developing a long-term landscape restoration programme in the Nyando River catchment – combining agroforestry, water management and innovative financing to restore both ecosystems and livelihoods.
For background on the project and its wider context, see our earlier article Restoring Kenya’s Nyando River catchment: how Trust 2 Impact connects landscapes, livelihoods and long-term finance here.
The Nyando catchment is one of the most degraded river systems on earth, but it also has high potential for recovery.
Seeing the connections
To get to grips with what is happening in the Nyando catchment, Trust 2 Impact starts with maps. Causal loop diagramming is a systems thinking tool that charts how different factors influence and reinforce each other. It reveals where a well-placed intervention can trigger a chain of positive change. “We map the feedback loops between water, soil, agriculture, income and governance to find where small interventions can generate large effects,” explains Victor.
“When we looked at the Nyando River catchment systemically, deforestation, soil degradation, flooding, poverty and weak economic alternatives were all feeding into each other,” says Humphrey. “So instead of simply planting trees, we integrated landscape restoration with livelihoods, regenerative agriculture and local economic empowerment – because communities are more likely to protect ecosystems when restoration also improves their income and resilience.”
People are not resistant to change, they are resistant to exclusion from the benefits of change.
The knowledge is already there
Working closely with local communities is central to the programme. Victor is sometimes frustrated by the gap between knowledge and action. “The knowledge of how to work with the land – how to prepare seeds, read the landscape and the water, restore it – is there, but it’s hidden,” he says. “It needs to come out and be taken seriously. It’s often locked inside communities and academic papers, but there is no structure yet to connect it to financing and markets.”
Humphrey recognises the same pattern. “In many cases, communities already understood changes in rainfall patterns and soil fertility decline long before formal data confirmed it,” he says. “What was missing was a structured platform connecting that lived experience to financing mechanisms, restoration science, and economic opportunities.” Trust 2 Impact aims to do that.
This connects to a broader assumption Humphrey has consistently challenged: that communities resist change. “People are not resistant to change, they are resistant to exclusion from the benefits of change,” he says. Once communities see a credible pathway towards resilience and economic inclusion, their response shifts, and the numbers bear that out. Today, more than 20,000 community members are engaged in the programme – a strong foundation for the 60,000 hectares of agroforestry and riparian restoration the team aims to achieve across the Nyando catchment.
If it works here, what does it prove?
The Nyando catchment was chosen deliberately. It is one of the most degraded river systems on earth, but it also has high potential for recovery. “If we can fix the Nyando catchment area, we fix more than that,” Victor says. “Because what comes out of that river ends up in Lake Victoria. Improve the catchment and the whole lake system benefits, including the three countries surrounding it.”
“If this approach succeeds, it proves that climate restoration can simultaneously become an environmental solution, a poverty reduction strategy, and a green economic development model,” Humphrey says. “Carbon credit and climate finance projects work best when they are rooted in community ownership, systems thinking, and inclusive economic participation, not isolated technical interventions.”
A model worth repeating
Replication across the Lake Victoria basin would require long-term financing, local capacity-building and transparent governance. But above all, a shift in perspective. “Most importantly,” Humphrey concludes, “replication requires seeing ecosystems and communities not as separate issues, but as one interconnected living system. That is the real lesson emerging from Nyando.”
This is the second of a series of three articles. Read the first article and stay tuned for more in-depth insights.
Read first articleAt the Waterproof event by Partners for Water, over 50 tables of water professionals spent the day tackling one of the sector’s most persistent challenges: not the lack of solutions, but the lack of conditions to make them work.
The gap between policy and practice
A recurring theme of Waterproof 2026 was the critical gap between water governance and climate action on the ground. While advanced climate and water policies exist, translating them into local implementation remains highly contested and complex.
The opening discussion focused on the central theme that the UN has declared an era of ‘global water bankruptcy’. With 68 water projects on display at the event, it was clear that the ideas are there but scaling them remains a colossal task. Success depends on having the right policies and regulations in place, ensuring fair and accessible funding, available and trustworthy data and making sure the right people have a seat at the table.
From pilots to systems
Participants argued against the tendency to fund isolated experiments that never scale. One table noted that only doing a pilot is affecting the livelihoods of real people and there is too much focus on solutions and not on the necessary systems.
The output from the enabling environment session captured this consensus: Partners for Water’s next programme should prioritise facilitating local champions to convene actors and drive systemic change, rather than managing projects from a distance.
The real challenge is that the problems are accelerating faster than the solutions can be deployed.
Local ownership
Perhaps the most consistent theme across all rounds was the need for genuine local ownership. Participants argued that climate adaptation works only when it is local, community-owned and built on mutual interest and respect from the start.
Enhancing that was the conversation around the value of indigenous and local knowledge. Participants suggested that many communities already have their own adaptation strategies, making the case for supporting and amplifying those ideas, rather than replacing them.
Neha Mungekar of IHE Delft Institute for Water Education reinforced this from a governance perspective. The main obstacle to implementing water solutions, she argues, is not technology, but human behaviour. Participatory platforms tend to invite the wrong people: “We fill rooms with experts and representatives, but rarely with those who experience the problem.” In Bhopal, India, she brought health practitioners and water authorities, the latter of which had been denying groundwater contamination. After a heated exchange backed by hard data, they eventually acknowledged it. “For me, this was a big win.”
Her broader lesson echoed throughout the discussions: “Sustainability without justice causes harm…change must be culturally situated and sensitive to loss.”
Finally, she emphasised that breaking silos requires “creating safe spaces for encouraging all voices” and getting “marginalised groups (youth, women, indigenous groups, etc.) driving the UN conference rather than just attending it.”
Finance and innovative mechanisms
On financing, the picture was sobering. With only five specialist water tech investors globally, patient capital remains scarce – 80 percent of investors have invested in water technology only once. Liza Faber of Pure Terra Ventures argued that the perception of water being unattractive to investors is a misconception. “The real challenge is that the problems are accelerating faster than the solutions can be deployed.”
Ferdinand Segers of Plan International noted that many companies underestimate how water risks will affect them, making them reluctant to invest proactively. Plan International is exploring blended finance that combine grants with private investment, using donated funds to absorb risk and attract investors.
Meanwhile, the World Bank’s newly launched Water Forward Programme secured commitment from 14 countries to establish budgets and create the right policy conditions to unlock SDG 6 funding.
A major funding gap remains for projects that are too large for small pilot grants, but too risky for institutional investors. Several tables called for a dedicated catalytic fund, with Partners for Water acting as a risk-taker to encourage private investment in water innovation and technology.
Other proposals included Watershed Investment Programmes where water users dedicate 1 percent of their water bill to watershed restoration and True Pricing, which embeds the full costs of water into product prices to build financial capacity and educate communities about the real cost of water use. A more radical economic proposal involved forgiving foreign debt of low-to-middle income countries to fund mitigation and adaptation without creating new debt burdens.
A recurring structural obstacle is governments keeping water tariffs artificially low for political reasons, undermining the financial sustainability of water services.
Sustainability without justice causes harm…change must be culturally situated and sensitive to loss.
Data, AI and the politics of information
A conversation emerged around data. New national laws in countries like Vietnam are actively prohibiting open data exchange, while, as one participant noted you can’t adapt to climate change if data is not being shared. AI was welcomed as a tool for early warning and coordination and for preserving institutional memory, but concerns rose around its energy and water footprint and the risk of data being weaponised by governments. Paradoxically, AI is both a heavy water consumer and a tool for solving the very crisis it contributes to. Participants argued that data should in the long run be democratised and accessible for all citizens.
Long timelines, structural commitment
The Dutch Diamond model, bringing together government, business, knowledge institutions and civil society, was praised and scrutinised through examples from Vietnam and Ghana demonstrating successful local initiatives that struggle to be adopted more broadly.
The Netherlands’ Delta Fund was highlighted as a model of structural commitment embedded in law and therefore largely insulated from political change. On a broader scale, there was a call to create an EU Water Strategy and a water availability Directive to coordinate efforts and share lessons learned.
Unambiguously there was agreement that attention must extend beyond delivery to maintenance, monitoring and long-term follow-up.
The final call
The closing call to action captured the spirit of the whole day: “By 2040, fund community-led water adaptation through ethical AI, transparent data sharing, youth leadership and local knowledge and de-politicise water.”
The 2030 breakthrough plan added further urgency calling for radical public awareness of water security, through for instance a worldwide International Day Without Water to personalise the crises.
Three clear priorities emerged for Partners for Water’s next programme: facilitate local champions to drive systemic change; act as a catalyst by providing a de-risking fund that bridges the gap between pilots and scale; and commit to long-term programme timelines that cover the full project cycle. The conditions for change are understood. The question is whether the structures will follow.
More about Waterproof
Partners for Water is a Dutch government programme enhancing water security internationally in long-term cooperation with local partners and the Dutch water sector. By facilitating strategic planning and support in the early stages of innovation, the programme aims to contribute to systemic change for sustainable water management and infrastructure. This is how we initiate impactful changes for a better living environment.
