GLOBAL PARTNERS’ MOST RECENT SUPPORT TO ARKARIA VILLAGE
In 2013, the Arkaria Community submitted a proposal to Global Partners to request support to improve Arkaria’s water and hygiene sanitation in the village. The request focussed on the community’s expressed need for Water Harvesting tanks, which would provide Arkaria village clusters of BOMAS with Plastic Sim Tanks for water harvesting and storage throughout the wet and dry seasons. The idea was to reduce the workload of women, and improve families’ health in general, by providing water tanks to keep water for those BOMAS.
To date, we are very happy to announce that the project is 75% complete. And, Arkaria has placed more than 20 of the planned 30 tanks, which will be used to bring clean water this community. It is a huge achievement and the tanks are already making the lives of the people in the community better.
Water rights are critical in determining access not only to water, but also to pastures and other resources (natural salt pans) in pastoral areas. The location, legal status and technical characteristics of a water source are critical components that determine the conditions under which pastoralists can access and manage pastures. Understanding the links between water and natural pastures is important for appreciating how the pastoral system works. Water provision in the drylands can be seen from two perspectives: (i) the to need to provide water for livestock with limited attention on how it will impact pasture management; or, (ii) the need to provide domestic water where the focus has been on issues of water quality and accessibility, particularly for women. Rarely are the dual requirements of water for both livestock and people considered in policy and development projects in the pastoral areas of Tanzania. This project however has addressed both those needs.
