IFAD 30 August 2017 - By championing the possibilities of waste - food, agro-industrial and even human - a grant funded by IFAD and the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC) has supported food security and sustainability across the world. From 2011 to 2015, the Resource Recovery and Reuse project – implemented by the International Water Management Institute (IWMI) under the CGIAR Water, Land and Ecosystems research programme – analysed 110 waste-recovery businesses in order to establish guidelines for assessing, implementing and scaling up similar programmes. Now, the project’s findings are generating donor interest and encouraging small businesses globally to take advantage of the water, nutrients and energy found in waste.

Figure: Safe, nutritious fertilizer pellets made from processed human waste at a trial site at Buet, Dhakar, Bangladesh © IWMI/Neil Palmer

The main innovation of the Resource Recovery and Reuse project was to demonstrate that sanitation work and waste management - traditionally dependent on public subsidies - can be profitable. Its research found that waste-reuse businesses could increase cost recovery, generate profits and recover resources to improve soil nutrition, crop sustainability and climate resilience.

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