The Living with Water project

Creation of new green areas

The goals of the intervention are as below: 1. To enhance the resilience of people facing extreme climate events in selected countries in the Sahel, sub-Saharan Africa and South Asia - Senegal. 2. To help build resilience to flooding of urban communities by employing a community-based approach to disaster risk management through workshops and community-based actions. 3. To deploy technological interventions to mitigate the physical effects of flooding whilst also responding to the social and political aspects of the problem. Such technological interventions refer to interrelated flood-prevention practices such as urban gardening and urban greening, therefore converting the damaging floodwaters into a public good. 4. To develop local flood contingency plans, incorporating the results from topographic and geographic information system (GIS) analyses of the terrain, and the expertise of the local beneficiaries and district stakeholders. 5. To boost biodiversity and to increase green spaces threatened by rapid urbanisation as this led to the loss of substantial habitat in the region. (1,2,3,4)

The project started in 2015 and ended in 2017. The project was initiated and is continuously driven by activities, experiences and know-how that the communities in Senegal show in the face of the challenges posed by the annual floodwaters. The driving force for an integrated response to urban flooding initially came from representatives from flood-afflicted areas. The community-based approach also entails a strong capacity-building component for the affected people. Key components of capacity-building activities are community workshops, which raise awareness of key aspects of flood prevention such as waste management and recycling. A recycling and waste management programme was implemented to reduce the amount of waste in the districts, ensuring there is a sustainable source of revenue for members of the community, and ensuring that the infrastructure operates effectively. The project also developed 5 market gardens with the help of local women in the Yeumbeul Nord, in the vicinity of Dakar. Sixty-two rainwater evacuation infrastructures were built in the 10 communes of intervention of the project, and more than 400 tons of waste have been taken out of these vulnerable areas. Live With Water supported the beneficiaries in doing income-generating activities, waste collection, urban gardening, production and selling of compost etc. In each commune, a flood emergency plan was elaborated and the population was trained to be able to prevent the flooding and know how to react quickly in case of flooding. The population also benefited from door-to-door sessions to learn more about how to improve their resilience to flooding. (1,3)

• Citizens or community groups
• Marginalized groups: Socio-economically disadvantaged populations (e.g. low-income households, unemployed)