Through Biogas Technology Towards Higher Resilience of the Communities in Western Province of Zambia

In Zambia, the population faces the unavailability and scarcity of energy resources and the vast majority of people are dependent on unsustainable energy practices. The responsibility for collecting traditional resources (charcoal, firewood) is, in most cases, borne by women and girls, who often cannot devote themselves to education and/or other self-realization activities.

This project is focused on Zambia's Western Province, which has long-term high levels of extreme poverty and malnutrition. The intention is to contribute to increasing resilience to climate change and to increasing the food and nutritional security of small farmers. This will be achieved through a specific objective: to improve access to clean and sustainable energy and organic fertilizers to increase agricultural production, income and nutrition of smallholder farmers. The intervention includes four outputs: increasing smallholder farmers' awareness and demand for biogas technology, increasing the capacity of biogas service providers, launching a financing scheme for biogas technologies, and increasing farmers' knowledge about the use of biogas technology.

Among others, 140 small-scale biogas plants are planned to be built over the time of the project duration and additional fish ponds, where bio-slurry will be combined with aquaculture.

The project consortium consists of People in Need (ČvT) as a coordinating institution, the Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (CZU) and Keepers Zambia Foundation (KZF). The project partners will actively seek synergies with other entities operating in the Western Province and coordinate their activities with relevant programs implemented in Zambia.

Scientific Guarantor: Assoc. Prof. Dr. Hynek Roubík, roubik@ftz.czu.cz

CZU Project Coordinator: Ing. Jana Mazancová, Ph.D. mazan@ftz.czu.cz