Sand Dams Worldwide ​​​

Sand Dams Worldwide (SDW) is a UK-registered charity which supports some of the world’s poorest people to transform their own lives through water and soil conservation in drylands. They plan to support the construction of one million sand dams for 0.5 billion people by 2050.

The Howden Foundation is supporting SDW to construct sand dams across four seasonal riverbeds in Malawi’s drylands with their local delivery partner, Churches Action in Relief and Development (CARD). Sand dams are a nature-based rainwater harvesting solution which can store up to 40 million litres of rainwater in the sand that accumulates upstream of the dam wall. The sand dams will provide year-round access to clean water for more than 8,000 people whilst enabling women - who typically bear the brunt of water collection duties - to spend more time tending to the land, including through participating in CARD’s climate resilient agriculture training programme. The programme aims to enhance food and water security, whilst enabling the restoration of degraded land through the implementation of environmental protection techniques including tree planting, which is made possible by the presence of more reliable water supplies and the sand dams raising groundwater levels. CARD will also engage with the Malawi government to advocate for more widespread construction of sand dams across the country.