03 June 2014

IIASA Finalist under USAID Securing Water for Food

IIASA´s proposal, submitted with the coordinating agency and engineering company ARCADIS, is included in the finalists under USAID’s Grand Challenges for Development in their first-ever call for innovations to improve water and food security in the developing world under the Securing Water for Food challenge. 

On the cutting edge of innovation

The USAID/U.S. Global Development Lab call themed Securing Water for Food - A Grand Challenge for Development and awarded with the Desal Prize aims to source and accelerate innovations that will enable production of more food with less water and/or make more water available for food production, processing, and distribution.

The business and technology innovations applying under this call must address at least one of the following areas: water efficiency and reusing wastewater, water capture and storage, and salinity and salt water intrusion. 

Together with the coordinating agency ARCADIS, IIASA submitted a proposal to compete under the Securing Water for Food challenge. ARCADIS is an engineering company, capable of setting up a pilot for their technology, which was the purpose and intent of the call. The outcome of the project will be an analysis of a technology solution, working with a private company that applies it. The project is imbedded into the wider WFaS initiative, one of the global IIASA flagship programs. On June 3, Securing Water for Food announced the finalists in its first-ever call for innovations to improve water and food security in the developing world and IIASA´s collaborative proposal was listed.

The finalists are on the cutting edge of innovation in water efficiency and reusing wastewater, water capture and storage, and salinity and salt water intrusion -- think solar irrigation, nanotechnology brackish water desalination, aquaponics, remote sensing and monitoring for improved water efficiency, new financing products to improve water access, and many more., says Lauren Yang, Innovation Communications Specialist of the Grand Challenges for Development/USAID section.


This is a historic partnership launched at the 2013 World Water Week in Stockholm between the United States Agency for International Development (USAID), the Swedish International Development Cooperation Agency (Sida) and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Kingdom of The Netherlands (MFA-NL).


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Last edited: 20 June 2014

Securing Water for Food

A Grand Challenge for Development

U.S. Global Development Lab

International Institute for Applied Systems Analysis (IIASA)
Schlossplatz 1, A-2361 Laxenburg, Austria
Phone: (+43 2236) 807 0 Fax:(+43 2236) 71 313