International Cooperation

Water and sanitation are one of the basic human needs, essential for a healthy and comfortable life, and their realization has become a global issue. In peri-urban low-income settlements (compounds) spreading around Lusaka, the capital of Zambia, cholera outbreaks occur sporadically, making the improvement of water and sanitation an urgent priority. Associate Professor Hidenori Harada and his team have been implementing the “Risk-based Participatory WASH Planning and Citizen-data WASH Statistics for African Peri-urban Settlements” project (known as the SPLASH Project) since 2024. This project, conducted as a JST/JICA Science and Technology Research Partnership for Global Solutions (SATREPS) initiative, aims to achieve community-led water and sanitation alongside government-led infrastructure development. This project receives support from JST (Japan Science and Technology Agency) as a research project, while also serving as an ODA project (JICA Technical Cooperation Project) aimed at solving social issues and developing local human resources.

Republic of Niger, which is located in the Sahel region on the southern edge of the Sahara Desert, is facing a serious problem of desertification (land degradation). As desertification progresses, agricultural production stagnates, the standard of living of the people declines, hunger and poverty spread, and ethnic conflicts and terrorist attacks resulting from hunger and poverty become frequent, threatening the lives and livelihoods of the inhabitants. Prof. Shuichi Oyama started his academic research in the rural areas of south-central Niger in 2000, and has continued his field research while living with the rural people. Based on his findings, he has been working on an international cooperation project which aims to identify the local ecological knowledge of Hausa farmers and their responses to land degradation, since 2015.