The Water Stewardship project aimed to improve and strengthen sustainable access to water and sanitation for the communities of 12 project villages, spread across Nanded and Baramati villages in the Indian state of Maharashtra. The project was implemented from January ’21 to August ’21 and carried out in the following three phases with support of implementing partners:

1. Inception Phase – During this phase, the project team focused on project grounding and community sensitization. A rapid assessment was carried out to analyse the ground situation and local needs based on which a holistic project design
   was formulated.
2. Execution Phase – The project targeted to create a water replenishment capacity of 170,000 m3 along with improving sustainable access to water and sanitation. In order to achieve the same, following interventions were designed and implemented under the current project:

• Construction of rainwater harvesting structures
• Afforestation
• Rejuvenation of water bodies
• Development of innovative WASH infrastructure
• Community Sensitization and Behaviour Change Communication (BCC) workshops.

1. Closure Phase – In the last phase of the project, the key interventions were handed over to the local community to ensure smooth operations, adequate maintenance and sustainability of the structures, thereby leading to long term benefits for the community.

The project has successfully impacted the lives of over 15,000+ beneficiaries directly.