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Sand dams are an affordable way to enable rural dryland communities to address hunger, poverty, conflict, climate change and land degradation and create green economic growth - all at the same time.

Dryland regions are tough places to live. Rainfall is erratic and water from heavy downpours runs off the dry land and erodes fertile soil. To make things worse, climate change is causing vast dryland areas to turn into desert.

Drylands support 74% of the world's poor (seems incredible but this is what everyone says!). Most of these live in rural areas. Here, the constant search for water traps millions of people in a vicious cycle of subsistence. Women and children often spend 6 to 12 hours a day trailing across parched scrubland to collect water, often from unclean rivers and unsafe sources. In times of drought it can take even longer. This constant search for water means that people have no time to invest in things like agriculture and education. So they are trapped in a situation they have no power to improve.

Change starts with water and water starts with a sand dam.  That's why sand dams make such a difference. They are the world’s cheapest method of capturing rainwater and this ancient technology can help provide a year-round supply of water that gives hope for generations to come.

Drylands represent 40% of the Earth's surface, produce 44% of the world’s food and are home to 80% of the world’s poor - Currently, there are only around 2,000 sand dams in the world, with an estimated 120 currently being built per year - mostly in Kenya.  The potential is for hundreds of thousands across the world’s drylands transforming the lives of millions of the world’s poor.

http://www.excellentdevelopment.com/what-we-do/supporting-rural-communities#sthash.hMsn1Odh.dpuf

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