📋 Tender Overview
Implemented by the Group of Sustainable Agroecosystems at ETHZ and local partners, RUNRES will improve the resilience of food systems in four different rural-urban regions across Africa. It will encourage organic and human waste recycling by implementing and scaling of viable innovations to transform waste into soil amendments or animal feed to serve as an input for agricultural production of smallholders, thereby contributing to food security, and human and environmental health in city region food systems.
Country/region Topic Period Budget
Global
Agriculture & food security
Water
Agricultural development
Agricultural policy
Water sanitation
01.10.2023 - 30.09.2027
CHF 4’570’000
The project in brief
Background Unprecedented urban growth is placing enormous burdens on governments and urban dwellers across Africa. They are facing a dual challenge: the sustainable and equitable production of food and the provision of dignified and sustainable basic sanitation. Currently, both the agricultural and the sanitation sectors are dominated by linear solutions that are heavily dependent on resource intensive inputs. These approaches lead to radical nutrient imbalances within rural-urban interfaces. In rural areas, long-term nutrient mining has created a downward trend of agricultural productivity, while urban areas suffer from an accumulation of organic waste, which harms environmental and human health. By creating synergistic solutions to these pressing issues, an alternative regional value chain approach that creates a circular flow of commodities across the urban-rural nexus has the potential to improve the resilience and sustainability of regional food systems and improving livelihoods.
Objectives The main objective of RUNRES phase 2 is to contribute to improved household livelihoods, food security, and environmental and human health in city region food systems through the implementation and scaling of innovations for circular food value chains.
Target groups Direct beneficiaries: Private entreprises, local municipalities, local organisations, women, men and youth that benefit from employment opportunities in RUNRES innovations End beneficiaries: smallholder farmers and consumers in city region food systems.
Medium-term outcomes
Local actors in target countries practice safe recycling of nutrients at scale
Policymakers and regulators utilize RUNRES results when developing and implementing new and enabling policies
Women, youth and farmers benefit from increased economic opportunities in circular value chains
External actors (entrepreneurs, public utilities, investors) actively take up/scale RUNRES innovations
Results Expected results:
10 different innovations developed and tested in phase 1 will be up- or out-scaled, and result in the continuation and/or establishment of at least 35 businesses
A sound economic and market analysis conducted for each waste-to-food value chain promoted through the innovations
Contribution to t
